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Alpine skiing

We’ve figured out who were the best athletes and our favourite moments of the 2018 Winter Olympics, but before closing the book for another four years, I wanted to touch on a few other topics to deliver a more comprehensive picture of what the action in PyeongChang entailed and what we can derive from it, especially on a country-by-country basis.

However, before we delve into the results, let’s award a few special mentions that could complement the previous chapters of this Winter Olympics review.

Best duel: Alina Zagitova vs Evgenia Medvedeva

Friends, training partners and compatriots, but also opponents with distinct skating styles and artistic concepts. The 15-year-old Alina Zagitova, despite her ballerina manners, is all athleticism and poise, exploding off the ice for breath-taking sequences of jumps and twists that she lands with age-defying efficiency. Three years older, Evgenia Medvedeva is eminently gracious and creative, an artisan who pours her soul into the routines and disappears into character, sublime in the technical aspects though not quite able to pull off the same physical exertion of her rival.

Standing head and shoulders above anyone else in the ladies’ figure skating competition, a mere 1.31 pts separated them in the end; Zagitova’s advantage secured with her world-record short program and controversially kept by the jury when the two teenagers scored the same total in the free skate. Superior in the choreographic and interpretative elements, the World Champion Medvedeva was left to rue her luck as Zagitova’s strategical decision to backload her act with the most difficult jumps to leverage extra points paid off. And so the fledgling prodigy beat the established star for Olympic gold, and one girl sobbed while the other smiled, still insensible to what had she had accomplished.

Similarly to gymnasts, the career of female figure skaters, particularly those that explode at such a young age, is difficult to handicap, but if Medvedeva and Zagitova can keep the flame burning, watch out. This could be a rivalry for the ages.

Eye-watering (non-sport) moment: Team Korea

We all know the world didn’t change because North and South Korean athletes and officials walked out together in the Opening Ceremony and waved the same flag, depicting a unified Korean Peninsula, but if PyeongChang is to be remembered as a miniscule step towards a political agreement that ends a decades-long stalemate, we can all agree that it was worth it. Platitude or not, sport really does have the power to unite people and nations like few else, and even the most cynical person would have to breach a smile at the sight of players from both countries battling and celebrating together on the ice while forming bonds off it.

And if, ultimately, this concerted effort by both nations’ leaders and the IOC means nothing, every person caught on that arena when Randi Heesoo Griffin scored Korea’s first goal will always have one historical moment to look back on. As will all the members of North Korea’s delegation that got to spent two weeks outside of their secluded state, including the mesmerizing “army of beauties” who trudged from venue to venue, unmistakable on their matching outfits and physical features, waving props, dancing to the beat, clapping and singing catching tunes like “Be Strong” and “Win. Win.”. Ok, the chants were bad but that’s not really what counts, is it?

After the mild temperatures found in Sochi 2014, the Winter Olympics were back in the appropriate environment, with freezing conditions castigating the athletes right from the Opening Ceremony, yet the Games could have been staged without the merciless gusts of wind that wrecked competitions and forced multiple delays, particularly in the first week.

Amongst all sports, the alpine skiing calendar was the most affected, with many races postponed to dictate a schedule compression that compelled star athletes (Mikaela Shiffrin, for instance) to drop events, while both biathletes and ski jumpers endured conditions that hampered their ability to shoot straight or land safely.

Course crew slide slip to the finish area after the women’s giant slalom was postponed due to high winds at the Yongpyong Alpine Center (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Nonetheless, the really problematic situations happened in the women’s snowboard slopestyle and women’s aerials (freestyle skiing) events, which shouldn’t have gone ahead because of the whipping wind. Turning the competitions into a mess or mere survival battles, the unpredictable conditions led to a parade of ugly falls and swaths of athletes restraining from attempting their riskier acrobatics, and that’s a real shame for the IOC. Athletes shouldn’t work four years with a single goal in mind, only to be forced to stake their physical well-being beyond the reasonable for the sake of a sporting competition.

Best venue atmosphere: Short track speed-skating

The Gangneung Ice Arena doubled as the figure skating venue, yet no other ticket in town was a sought-after as an invitation to the electric nights of short track, when locals regularly lost their marbles in the face of their favourite winter sport, the excitement palpable even for those watching on television.

Already one of the most action-packed, chaotic disciplines in the Winter Olympics, every short track race where the national athletes took part was an adventure on its own, with fans enthusiastically cheering name introductions, saturating the building with nervous tension, puffing at the sight of a fall and exploding in hysterics every time a South Korean moved up the pack to close on victory or contest a sprint. And let’s not even get to the outrage and rebelling raining from the stands when any home favourite got disqualified…

Local favourite Choi Min-Jeong strides to victory in the semi-final of the 1500m as two of her opponents wipe out in behind (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/Getty Images)

Country-by-country roundup:

Non-traditional nations that accomplished milestones

A record 30 National Olympic Committees gained medals in PyeongChang, and among those stand out a few that reappeared on the list after long absences. For instance Hungary, one of the most decorated Summer Olympic nations, who reached a podium for the first time since 1980, and couldn’t have asked for better from their short track men’s 5000m relay team, which made the national anthem sound for the first time in a Winter Olympics. Encomiums are thus in order for Viktor Knoch, Csaba Burján and siblings Shaoang Liu and Shaolin Sandór Liu, born in Budapest to a Chinese-father and key parts of the country’s seventh Winter medal since 1924.

Meanwhile, Spain hadn’t medalled in 26-years when Regino Hernández finished the men’s snowboard cross competition in third place, and they didn’t have to wait much more for another since figure skater Javier Fernández twirled his way to a deserved bronze medal in the men’s singles event contested two days later. Although, if we’re rewarding the quickest rebound from feast to famine, New Zealand takes the cake, tripling its all-time count in Winter Olympics in a matter of minutes due to consecutive bronze medals from a pair of 16-year-olds, freestyle skier Nico Porteous (men’s halfpipe) and snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (women’s big air), the first Winter medallists from the Pacific nation since 1992.

Sick of watching their northern neighbours hoard medals in speed skating, Belgium coaxed a bit of glory when Bart Swings finished second in the men’s mass start to snag the country’s first medal since 1998, whereas alpine skier Tina Weirather finally fulfilled her Olympic destiny, placing third in the women’s Super-G to reopen Liechtenstein’s account after 20 years. With Weirather’s success, now 7 of the 10 medals obtained by athletes from the tiny Principality belong to the same family since Tina’s mother, Hanni Wenzel, and uncle, Andreas Wenzel, also achieved podium positions in representation of the only country to hold medals from the Winter Olympics but not the Summer Olympic Games.

Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR)

Stripped of the national flag, anthem and colours in result of a scandalous doping scheme, the Russian athletes were placed on the eye of the storm and the results they delivered in strenuous circumstances underwhelmed, with the country’s representatives falling way short of the 11 golds and 29 medals that, to this day, make the official tally from their home Games in 2014.

A total of 168 athletes were cleared by international federations to don the special OAR tracksuits in PyeongChang, however, deprived of leading figures such as short track star Viktor Ahn, biathlon’s Anton Shipulin or cross-country’s Sergey Ustiugov and Alexander Legkov, the distinctive performances amongst the group were few and far between, with the Olympic Athletes from Russia totalling 17 medals and just two golds.

While true that those came in iconic events, men’s ice hockey and women’s singles figure skating, it’s no less legitimate to affirm that discomfort from not possessing enough clean athletes to compete in team events in biathlon or speed skating was galling, and things would have looked even bleaker if not for a tremendous up-and-coming generation of cross-country athletes headlined by Aleksandr Bolshunov, Denis Spitsov and Yulia Belorukova, who amassed a surprising 8 medals, almost half of the team’s final sum.

Ice hockey delivered one of just two gold medals for the Olympic Athletes from Russia (REUTERS/Grigory Dukor)

Furthermore, despite all the back spinning going on at the IOC, who seemed desperate to reinstate the Russian Olympic Committee in time for the Closing Ceremony, the OAR delegation still found a way to undermine their own chances, producing two of the four doping cases of the 2018 Olympics: the bizarre failed test of curler Alexander Krushelnitsky, who had to return his mixed doubles bronze medal, and the burlesque positive of bobsleigh pilot Nadezhda Sergeyeva, who had modelled a “I Don’t Do Doping” t-shirt just days before the start of the Games.

Still, Russia’s NOC was eventually welcomed back right after the dust settled, and mediocre results slipped under the radar at home because Vladimir Putin got the last laugh and the one thing he really desired: Olympic gold hanging from the necks of his ice hockey heroes.

China

Four years before the winter sports show stops in Beijing, China got an idea of how much work it still has ahead if hopes of making waves in 2022 are to be realized. In PyeongChang, Chinese athletes collected just 9 medals, the same number of Sochi, yet only one was mined from the most valuable metal and, critically, no improvements could be discerned in most sports despite the army of foreign experts brought on board to expedite the process.

In reality, between the Nordic disciplines (alpine skiing, cross-country, biathlon and ski-jumping) and the three sliding sports (luge, skeleton and bobsleigh), the Chinese failed to place a single athlete in the top 10, and even though they picked up some honours in freestyle skiing, snowboard, figure skating and speed skating (first podium appearance), the only sport where they’re undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with remains short track speed skating, where they’ve conquered 30 of 53 all-time medals. And, naturally, China’s only title in South Korea was conquered at the Gangneung Ice Center, with 23-year-old Wu Dajing setting two world records on his way to an impressive, wire-to-wire victory in the men’s 500m.

Short track speedskater Wu Dajing was the only Chinese athlete to leave PyeongChang with a gold medal (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Japan

For only the second time, and first outside of their home soil, the Japanese reached double digits in terms of Winter Olympics honours, and the secret behind that progress were the remarkable results achieved in the Gangneung Oval by their ladies, whose rejuvenated speed skating program tabbed 6 of 13 Japanese medals, and three of the four Nipponic golds.

Accordingly, the highlight of the Japanese performance in South Korea was, arguably, the spectacular victory in the women’s team pursuit over the mighty Dutch trio, though the star of the delegation was still figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu, who defended his title by finishing ahead of compatriot Shoma Uno in the men’s competition despite concerns over a nagging right ankle injury. As for the less expected outcome, it would pertain the third-place obtained by the women’s curling team, which spelled a first ever medal in the sport for the country.

The unified ice hockey team grabbed the headlines at home, particularly during the first week, and that may have been exactly what the rest of the South Korean contingent needed to shake off the nerves and deliver an outstanding fortnight, eventually ensuring that the proverbial host nation bump signified a doubling of the medal tally from Sochi (8 to 17).

As expected, most of the load fell on the speed skaters, not only in the short track (3 golds, 6 medals) but also on the longer course (1 gold, 7 medals), whereas figure skating retreated into the shadows on the wake of Yuna Kim’s retirement to cede the stage to a swath of unprecedented successes in disciplines that hold significantly less following in South Korea.

Members of the South Korean women’s curling team celebrate after their semifinal victory over Japan (Aaron Favila / AP)

The case in point would be the success of the “Iron Man” Yun Sung-bin, who tamed the Alpensia track like no other skeleton competitor, but the nice stories extended farther, comprising the four-man bobsleigh unit, who shared the podium with two German sleds, snowboarder Lee Sang-ho, who became the first Korean athlete to win a medal over snow when he finished in the runner up spot of the parallel giant slalom, and the lovely women’s curling team. Nicknamed the Garlic girls for their city of origin, they notched an incredible 8-1 record in group stage before securing silver in what was the country’s first ever participation in the sport.

Sweden

A traditional Winter Olympics powerhouse, Sweden’s delegation left PyeongChang one medal short of Sochi’s total (14 instead of 15) but, probably, in a much better mood by influence of the seven Olympic titles, which equalled the record haul of Torino 2006.

In fact, the total of 2014 was enormously dictated by cross-country (11 of the 14 medals), and while it wasn’t ideal that they got eclipsed by rivals Norway in endurance skiing this time (6 medals against 14), the Swedes found a way to compensate elsewhere, with the most unexpected news travelling from the biathlon centre, where a young team shone brightly to score four podiums and two brilliant gold medals (women’s individual and men’s relay) that bested their neighbour’s record.

Fredrik Lindström heads to the finish line in front of the Swedish crowd in the final moments of biathlon’s men’s relay (Getty Images)

Moreover, in another major battleground for Sweden, the slopes, veterans Frida Hansdotter and André Myhrer claimed a surprising sweep of the alpine skiing (individual) slalom events, while both of the nation’s curling teams played the respective finals in front of the visiting King Carl XVI Gustaf. Unfortunately, the men skipped by Niklas Edin couldn’t resist an American group on a mission, settling for silver, but Anna Hasselborg’s foursome completed the job and made up for the disappointing results in ice hockey, where both Swedish teams failed to reach the last four.

Netherlands

For the second consecutive Olympics, the Netherlands lodged inside the top-five in the final medal standings and, this time, they even showcased a bit of range, spraying some of their speed skating expertise to success in the short track, which accounted for a fifth of their twenty podiums. Including a first ever gold medal, captured by Suzanne Schulting in the 1000m, and a remarkable bronze snatched in the women’s 3000m relay after the Dutch got relegated to the B Final!

As for the proceedings in the Oval of Gangneung, the winners of a staggering 23 of 36 medals in Sochi 2014 garnered 16 of 42 (two mass start races added) in Pyeongchang, and 7 of 14 titles, a tally that seemed on the rise when they picked up six in the first seven speed skating events contested before falling flat. Regarding podium sweeps, after the incredible four of 2014, the Dutch swayed just one this time (women’s 3000m) and that can’t be disassociated from the decline in performance of their two legends, Sven Kramer and Ireen Wüst.

The veteran duo, though, still managed to pick up medals number 9 and 11, respectively, to become the most decorated speed skaters in Olympic history, and they were not the only flying Dutch to rewrite the history books since teammate Jorien ter Mors will be immortalized as the first female to medal in two different sports at a single Olympics, winning the 1000m in the long track and bronze with the 3000m relay in the smaller ice rink a few days later.

United States of America

Ranked fourth in both the gold medal (9) and total medal (23) counts, the United States produced their worst Winter Olympics showing since Nagano 1998 because they metamorphosed into the team of the “Almost”.

Indeed, an uncharacteristic 35 American athletes finished between fourth and sixth, however the most worrying trend is another, which keeps popping up at every four year cycle: despite all the money, the USA have grown increasingly reliant on the X-Games events – added in 1992 – to keep a meaningful slice of the pie, and that is manifested in 11 of 23 medals originating from the plethora of freestyle skiing and snowboard showdowns.

17 year-old Red Gerard won the first medal for the U.S. at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Mike Blake/Reuters)

At one point, the four Olympic titles obtained by American athletes belonged to snowboarders, with 17-year-olds Red Gerard and Chloe Kim pairing repeat Champions Jamie Anderson and Shawn White in the slopestyle and halfpipe competitions, but the final picture wind up getting a fresh coat of paint in the form of the three standout gold-medal performances amongst the entire American contingent: by the women’s ice hockey team, which ended Canada’s domination, the cross-country’s women’s sprint team, which secured the first ever Olympic title in the sport, and the men’s curling team, with John Shuster’s band of renegades charging to gold over Sweden.

Other positive surprises included a first ever singles medal in luge, courtesy of Chris Mazdzer, and the unmatched ability to generate contributions from 11 of 15 sports, though that shouldn’t disguise clear underperformance from the likes of bobsleigh, both speed skating disciplines – even if the women’s team pursuit salvaged bronze after the embarrassing goose egg in the Oval of Sochi – and figure skating, whose disastrous overall display in the women’s event was just the tip of the iceberg. In a minor level, reference to biathlon – the only Olympic sport where the USA have yet to reach the podium – and alpine skiing, which had to live with floundering men and the three medals gathered by Mikaela Shiffrin (gold and silver) and the departing Lindsey Vonn (silver).

Canada

Eight years after Vancouver, which marked a first look at the results of the “Own the Podium” program, Canada signed off from PyeongChang boasting a new record tally of medals (29) and a total of 11 golds, ranking third in both categories (and ahead of the USA, it should be noted), however these notable achievements couldn’t completely wash out the bittersweet taste left by what they missed out on.

Ice hockey and curling are Canada’s national past times and the proud holders of the four Olympic titles attributed in both sports were left to lick their wounds after relinquishing every single one of them in South Korea. They picked up the title in the novel curling mixed doubles event, but that’s small consolation since both genre’s foursomes finished off the podium, something that had never happened to Canadian men or women since the sport debuted in 1998. In addition, on the other sheet of ice, the women’s hockey team capitulated to the USA in the Final and the men had to settle for bronze in a tournament contested without NHL players.

Canada forward Meghan Agosta (2) and forward Marie-Philip Poulin (29) react after losing to the United States in the shootout of the women’s Olympic final Olympic (Nathan Denette/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

On the positive side, Canada’s beloved figure skating pair won two golds in PyeongChang, with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir leading the way in the team event before recovering the ice dancing title, and to the four figure skating medals acquired, the country appended a healthy five in short track speed skating, with Kim Boutin snagging one in each individual event, as well as four golds and an admirable seven podiums in freestyle skiing, a sport where they hold the all-time lead.

Furthermore, Canada medalled for the first time in luge, with Alex Gough hitting the top-three in women’s singles and as part of the relay, Dutch-born Ted-Jan Bloemen became the first Canadian athlete to win an individual Olympic speed skating event in 34 years, and the bobsleigh two-man unit piloted by Justin Kripps stunningly tied for gold with a German sled, repeating the unusual circumstances of Nagano 1998, when Canada and Italy couldn’t be separated in the first gold medal dead heat in bobsleigh’s Olympic history.

Anointed as the pre-Olympics favourites to top the medal table, the Germans fell just short of the goal, bagging a mere 31 (the maximum are still 36 at Salt Lake City) in spite of matching Norway for a new winter record of 14 titles, nonetheless their authorities should be thrilled with the performance.

Improving massively on the haul of 8 victories and 19 podiums collected four years ago, Germany was only blanked once in 16 days of competition and managed to keep their usual strongholds, sweeping the gold medals in the Nordic Combined, including the entire top-three in the Individual large hill/10 km event, and bobsleigh, where they had been shockingly shut out in Sochi, and coming close in luge, with the fourth triumph flying wayward due to Felix Loch’s mistake.

World champion Johannes Rydzek led a German one-two-three finish in the Pyeongchang 2018 Nordic combined individual Gundersen large hill/10 kilometres event (Getty Images)

In truth, between the three sliding sports, the Germans bagged a record six golds at the Alpensia Sliding Center – more than all the other countries combined – and 11 medals, but there was much more to be excited about, from the 3 titles and 7 podiums heaped by biathletes in spite of Laura Dahlmeier’s “modest” contributions, to the four medals conquered by ski jumpers.

Regarding the rest of the contingent, a deserved reference to the gold captured by 34-year-old Aliona Savchenko (partnering Bruno Massot) in the pair’s figure skating competition of her fourth Olympics, and the surprising silver in men’s ice hockey, where the underdogs eliminated the reigning World Champions (Sweden) and Olympic Champions (Canada) on the way to a first medal since 1976.

Norway

I have no idea if Norway’s success in winter sports is based on their reticence to keep score below the age of 13, allowing the kids to fall in love without the pressure of competition, or some truth to the old adage that Norwegian children are born with skis on, however I’m convinced the future is unlikely to bring another Olympics where so many things go right at the same time for this Nordic nation.

Landing in PyeongChang with the 10th largest commission (109 athletes), the Norwegians not only blitzed past the United States’ Winter Olympics record of 37 medals (Vancouver 2010) and destroyed their previous best, totalling an unprecedented 39 after the 26 of Lillehammer and Sochi, but also matched Germany (2018) and Canada’s (2010) marks with a record 14 gold medals at a single Olympics.

It’s well known that Norway’s national sport is cross-country and, unsurprisingly, their athletes drove the bus in South Korea to erase memories of a tepid performance four years ago, racking up an unparalleled 14 medals which comprised 7 golds, a podium sweep in the men’s 30km skiathlon, five metal biscuits for the legendary Marit Bjørgen, three titles for wunderkind Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and, amazingly, 0 honours for the reigning World Cup and Tour de Ski Champion Heidi Weng….

Moreover, keeping up with the best practices over two planks, ski jumpers pitched in 5 medals, including the first ever gold in the team event, biathletes contributed with 6, even with a single individual triumph from star Johannes Thingnes Bø, and the strength of their vaunted “Attacking Vikings” – which finally netted a maiden gold in the men’s downhill (Aksel Lund Svindal) – was supplemented with the first podium appearances for female alpine skiers since 1932.

Freestyler Øystein Bråten also joined the ski party by triumphing in the men’s slopestyle, and even the lack of individual medals (silver in team event) in the Nordic Combined, where the country leads the all-time standings, was eventually offset by the timely return to glory of Norway’s once-dominant speed skating team, who hadn’t won a title since 1998 before claiming the men’s 500m (Håvard Lorentzen) and men’s team pursuit in PyeongChang.

Throwing the bronze medal in curling’s mixed doubles – rescued after the OAR disqualification – into the pile, 8 of the 11 sports where Norway competed chipped into the pot, and that summons their approach: capitalize on what you’re good at and leave the other chips to fall where they may.

The best thing about any Olympic Games, what keeps us glued to the television after all, are the athletes and the beautiful ways they inspire the generations to come. The second best thing? The memories created along the way, from those hair-raising, spine-tingling instances that will get discussed for eternity and immortalized in video, photography or gif-form, to the less widespread occasions that resonate on a more personal level and around niche audiences.

Consequently, mobilizing the perspective to sort through the many moments that could fill this category is more challenging than it looks, yet that’s what I’m (not) paid to do, so here you go: five moments I’ll cherish from the PyeongChang Olympics, in a mixture of monumental upsets and emotional breakthroughs recounted in detail, followed by a list of others that could have easily been featured.

Biathlete Hanna Öberg romps to startling 15km Individual triumph

The Individual races are biathlon’s longest solo efforts, and far from the most thrilling format when we take into account that they’re contested against the clock, with the favourites spread across the start list and competing detached of references. Still, these are also events where shooting accuracy is of paramount importance, and a clean slate can do wonders on the way to smashing surprises.

With a couple of top-seven finishes under her belt, Swedish Hannah Öberg had already shown good form in Pyeongchang when she departed for her third race of the Winter Games sporting the No. 24 of 86 competitors, however few would have fancied her chances of a medal at the time.

Positioned outside the top 50 in the 2017-18 World Cup ranks and having never medalled amongst the elite, the 22-year-old would remarkably down every single target on a day of instable weather conditions, going 20-of-20 on the range before motioning fast enough through the tracks to hold off a blazing skiing performance by Slovak Anastasyia Kuzmina (2 misses). When Öberg crossed the line to set the fastest time, she collapsed of exhaustion and soon the nerve-racking process of waiting on her luck began.

A perfect shooting performance set the stage for Hanna Öberg’s incredible triumph (REUTERS)

As the minutes trickled in, one by one the big names did just enough to fall out of contention, and realization that a medal was coming her way started to creep into Öberg’s face on the rest area as the number of athletes still to finish dwindled rapidly. Donning bib 80, double Olympic Champion Laura Dahlmeier represented the last roadblock to a major upset, yet the German flagged in the last loop around the circuit and could only clock the third best time, consummating the young Swede’s delight.

In a perfect representation of the Olympics’ magic, overnight Hanna Öberg went from complete unknown into a national star brimming with confidence, and she punctuated her breakout performance by authoring an incredible comeback in the women’s relay a few days later, vaulting Sweden from eight to second in her anchoring leg to leave PyeongChang with two medals in tow.

In an era where hosting the Olympic Games is an humongous enterprise suited only for a rotating cast of economic powerhouses, historical breakthroughs in home soil can be characterized as a thing of the past, yet it wasn’t that long ago that host nations capitalized on the ultimate Olympic honour by funnelling resources into areas of weakness in order to enjoy major strides in sports that never before formed part of the national conversation.

For South Korea, the Winter Olympics have always been about excelling in ice skating sports, namely figure skating and short track speed skating, and not in the sliding disciplines rooted in Europe and North America, however that changed when Yun Sung-bin’s triumphed in men’s skeleton. Only six years after taking the sport, and four since placing 16th in Sochi, the 23-year-old took full advantage of his familiarity with the Alpensia Sliding Center to record the largest margin of victory in Olympic skeleton history or any sliding event since 1972.

Yun Sung-bin captured the imagination of his compatriots with a dominant performance in men’s skeleton. (Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters)

Sung-bin accumulated a ludicrous 1.63 seconds less than silver medallist Nikita Tregubov by posting the best time in all four runs, and he not only became the first Asian to medal in skeleton, but the first man born outside of the two leading continents to win an Olympic sliding event. And just so the symbolism wouldn’t be lost in the Olympic daily shuffle, after breaking the track record in the final descent, Sung-bin was serenaded by a venue overflowing with beaming compatriots, the local fans flocking in a national holiday to see their new hero complete history.

There’s no shortage of snow, wilderness or funds that might justify the fact that the United States had never won an Olympic title in cross-country skiing, still that piece of information ringed unequivocally true. Traditionally dominated by Norway, Sweden and Russia, the only previous American honour in the sport dated back to 1976, when Bill Koch claimed silver in the men’s 30km, but that would change on February 21st and in stirring fashion.

Jessie Diggins rejoices after securing the United States first medal in cross-country skiiing in more than 40 years (Lars Baron / Getty Images)

One of the most engaging races in cross-country’s Olympic agenda, the women’s team sprint consisted of 6 by 1.25km sprints alternating between 2 teammates, and when the last exchange took place, favourites Norway, Sweden and United States had already wrapped the three podium positions, leaving only the medal distribution to hang on the efforts of American Jessica Diggins and the reigning individual sprint Champion and runner-up, Stina Nilsson (Sweden) and Maiken Caspersen Falla (Norway), respectively.

The Norwegian was the first to make a move on the final lap, but the others glued behind, leapfrogged in the descent and entered the stadium in front, with Falla lagging as Swede and American prepared for the decisive rush. In earnest, Nilsson surged ahead off the final curve, seemingly on her way to victory by way of her formidable finishing speed, but the 26-year-old Diggins jumped out of her shadow and started to erase the deficit stride by stride to arise in front at the finishing line, winning an exhilarating final sprint for Olympic immortality.

Quickly mauled by Kikkan Randall, the teammate with whom Diggins had also won the team sprint at the 2013 World Championships, disbelief and joy irradiated from the American pair’s emotional embrace, a moment that symbolized more than four decades of national frustration leading up to the United States’ first ever Olympic medal in women’s cross-country skiing.

How is it possible that these two teams never disappoint? That United States vs Canada in women’s ice hockey is always synonymous of drama and chaos, enduring moments, heroic performances and everything else that makes hockey great. Four years after a bouncing piece of vulcanized rubber, a post, a soul-crushing ping and Marie-Philip Poulin denied the American players of Olympic glory in Sochi, redemption was once again in their hands, the chance to end Canada’s string of four consecutive gold medals and write a fresh chapter in a sports rivalry with so many twists and turns except when it matters the most.

Superior in the team’s group stage encounter in PyeongChang despite falling to Canada by 2-1, the Americans started the Olympic Final on top, scoring on a powerplay deflection by Hilary Knight in the closing seconds of the first period, but the script flipped quickly in the second, with Haley Irwin batting one home before the inevitable Poulin, who had scored the game-winning-goals in the 2010 and 2014 deciders, drove a dagger into the US heart by taking advantage of some sloppy defence. For the next 26 minutes of playing time, frenzied American pressure and superb goaltending by Canada’s Shannon Szabados hailed no changes, and just as it looked like Poulin would be the hero again, a lackadaisical line switch afforded Monique Lamoureux-Morando a breakaway that she buried for the leveller with less than 7 minutes to go in regulation.

For a second consecutive Olympics, the path for Gold would require the sudden-death, anxiety-inducing overtime, but this time Canada couldn’t convert on a late powerplay, and a delightful Final resorted to a skills competition or, as they call it, the (f*ckin) shootout.

One on one against the goalies, Gigi Marvin (USA) and Meghan Agosta (CAN) scored in consecutive attempts, Amanda Kessel (USA) rifled one to answer right after Melodie Daoust (CAN) pulled off “The Forsberg”, and then, on the sixth American shot, Justine Lamoureux-Davidson carried out the move of a lifetime, faking a backhand before dragging the puck across the body of an helpless Szabados and sliding it into the cage.

Leading 3-2 in the shootout in extra innings, all the Americans needed was a save from Maddie Rooney on Agosta, and the 20-year-old, cool as a cucumber and smiling through her mask, kicked out the final shot of the women’s tournament to end an Olympic drought that mirrored her age. At last, time had come for the tears of frustration and sadness to rain from the eyes of the woman clad in red as blue sweaters piled on top of each other a few meters away.

Ester Ledecká rocks Alpine skiing world in dazzling Super-G run

“You are first. You are the winner.

Noooooooooooo.

You are!”

I can’t pinpoint the last time TV spectators were treated to a raw exchange between an athlete and the men manning the camera, yet standard procedure went out the window when the object of attention finished the race and stared slack-jawed at the pandemonium spawning, clearly failing to comprehend what the senses were communicating to the brain. The uproar, the flashes, the flabbergasted faces looking at her and, most definitely, that bright green light flaring up on the screen in front. Shock, disbelief, bewilderment and excitement blending inside Ester Ledecká’s head and invading those lucky enough to catch one of the most extraordinary moments in Olympic history.

But let’s rewind the tape. In alpine skiing, the top-10 contenders for each race are allowed to pick their starting positions, choosing odd numbers between 1 and 19. The next group of ranked athletes are assigned the gaping digits (2 to 20), and the remaining names are tucked to the end, completing their runs when the snow is much softer and irregular. Hence, the last participants are not only less qualified, but usually impaired by worse conditions, and that’s why so many declared Austrian Anna Veith, the defending Champion, as the impending winner of the Olympic Super-G shortly after her compatriot Cornelia Huetter (bib 19) clocked the 7th best time. More than half of the 45 competitors were still buying their time in the starting house, yet none had ever finished a Super-G race amongst the elite and, surely, that wouldn’t happen at the friggin’ Olympics.

Czech Ester Ledecka on her way to gold in the Super G (Getty Images)

Now, slot bib 26 into the narrative, a number that belonged to Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecká. A full-fledged snowboard star that had accumulated sporadic appearances in the Alpine skiing World Cup since 2016, she only caught the full attention of onlookers some 40 seconds into her run by speeding past the second checking point in a time 0.18s faster than Veith’s. Definitely an interesting mark, though far from unheard off since 14 others had accomplished the same and the much more relevant intermediate three loomed downhill to restore normality. Except, against all odds, it didn’t and green radiated again, this time enclosing a tiny – 0.04s.

Over the next 20 ticks, as many held their breath, Ledecká negotiated a couple of turns, tucked for a long jump, landed nervously and raced to the line, stopping the clock at 1:21.11. Just one hundred of a second better than the previous best, the minimum separation accepted in Alpine skiing, yet more than enough to turn an unassuming 22-year-old from Prague into a household name at home and abroad.

What? The 2018 Winter Olympics concluded more than a week ago, World Cup action has resumed for the majority of sports, an athlete we’ll mention later even merited an Oscars shout out and you’re still rolling out posts about it?

Well, life’s busy, the Olympics’ hangover is a thing that exists and procrastination an aberration of modern societies, but I didn’t want to let PyeongChang slide under the rug after having so much fun for 17 days, therefore let’s do a three-part review of the most important multi-sport event of this year.

We’ll start by turning the spotlight onto the men and women who captivated audiences worldwide with their incredible displays, honouring the best of the best amongst the 2900 athletes that competed in the XXIII Winter Games. In the second instalment, we’ll shift our focus to the most memorable moments of the Games, and our final entry – hopefully published later this week – will be dedicated to a further breakdown of the results, including takeaways on team performances by the most representative winter nations.

Without further ado, here are the five names that ruled in South Korea last month and four (maybe three… Ask Canada) more that were in the mix. And yes, athletes that enjoyed multiple chances to bag medals had the upper hand, but that’s just how it goes. Sports ain’t fair most of the time.

Martin Fourcade (Biathlon, France)

One of the most dominant athletes on all sports, Fourcade led France’s delegation into the stadium on the opening ceremony and then he manufactured a few more opportunities to wave his nations’ flag in Korea, racking three gold medals in PyeongChang to elevate his career total to five titles and two silver medals, the most accomplished Olympic resume of any French Olympian.

Martin Fourcade and the French flag. A relationship that marked the 2018 Winter Olympics (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)

Rebounding quickly from a disappointing 8th place in the Sprint, which was made inevitable by three uncharacteristic misses in prone, the biathlon star flew up the tracks to renew his title in the pursuit one day later, and the same would have happened in the 20km individual were it not for a shocking two consecutive errors in the last stop at the shooting range.

Amending for the crushing photo-finish loss of Sochi, Martin Fourcade later secured the second gold medal of his campaign in the Mass Start, overcoming a fall and beating German Simon Schemp by the tip of a ski in a frantic finale, and clinched his final triumph in the mixed relay event, nullifying a 38-second deficit entering the final leg to give France a magnificent victory. A fourth title, which would have tied Ole Einar Bjørndalen’s record at a single Winter Games, could have materialized in the men’s relay, but the gap accrued by his teammates proved unsurmountable, with France finishing a distant fifth. Still, three golds in six races make for a tidy bundle sure to lift Fourcade’s spirit as he inches closer to become the greatest biathlete of all-time.

Back in February 2014, when she obtained her fourth Olympic title in the skiathlon race of Sochi, 33-year-old Marit Bjørgen became the oldest cross-country gold medallist in history. Fast forward to PyeongChang, and you could barely notice the differences on the soon-to-be 38-years-young, the sport’s GOAT brandishing the Norwegian flag across the finish line, no rival in sight, an incredible eight gold medal sealed in sensational form on the women’s calendar most gruelling race, the 30km classical.

Eight long years after sitting atop Vancouver’s medal table with 5 medals, the Iron Lady set her sights on achieving four podiums in South Korea to surpass Ole Einar Bjorndalen’s Winter Olympics record of 13 and, admirably, she fulfilled the task with room to spare, reaping a similar haul in quantity, if not in quality (two golds instead of the three) when compared to 2010, when the Norwegian stood at the very top of her powers.

Marit Bjoergen celebrates with her teammates after sealing victory in the women’s relay and her historical 14th Olympic medal (Photo: Matthias Schrader, AP)

Bronze in the 10km Free and the Team Sprint, silver in the skiathlon, gold in the 4x5km relay to pair the iconic 30km marathon victory. With a total of 15 Olympic medals (8 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze) laying amongst her extensive roll of honours, Queen Marit of Norway will soon ride off into the sunset as the most decorated Winter Olympian in history.

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (Cross-country skiing, Norway)

The prodigious Klæbo is hailed by many experts as the most talented U-23 athlete the cross-country skiing world has ever seen, and the Norwegian justified the tremendous expectations placed upon him by becoming just the fourth male athlete to win three gold medals at the Winter Games before turning 22.

With unmatched strength and acceleration, the 21-year-old handily shrugged off the opposition in the men’s sprint, his signature event, and then anchored two relays, darting to victory over the Olympic Athletes from Russia in the team sprint and exploding in the final elevation to leave behind the same team in the final leg of the 4 x 10km relay.

The current Cross-country World Cup leader, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is still building his stamina, which explains the 10th place in the skiathlon and decision to skip the 15km Free and 50km Mass Start, however he’s already flashed the ability to triumph in longer distances and that should be a really terrifying prospect for everyone looking to challenge him in Beijing 2022.

Ester Ledecká (Alpine skiing/Snowboard, Czech Republic)

If all Ester Ledecká ever did was toggle between skiing and snowboard on a regular basis, alternate three-week blocks of training for two very different sports held in concurrent seasons, and summon the discipline necessary to excel and achieve Olympic qualification in activities that only share the natural elements (snow and slopes), she would have already been worthy of commendations aplenty. But then she went so much further.

What Ester Ledecká did the unthinkable in PyeongChang (AFP)

The first athlete to compete at the Winter Olympics in alpine skiing and snowboarding, the Czech was always going to write her name in the history books, but no one anticipated she would pen it in bright gold, the victory in the snowboard parallel giant slalom, a discipline where she was the reigning World Champion, almost subdued by what happened a few days earlier over borrowed skis.

Departing long after all the alpine favourites, the 22-year-old who had never placed higher than 19th in any Super-G event scooted down the hill, miraculously kept within striking distance of the best run in spite of a couple of glaring mistakes, and hunched over the finish line to shake the alpine skiing tour, the sports world and her own, very special existence. Incredibly, the stubborn girl who persisted on stretching the limits of athleticism was on her way to become just the third athlete to do a multi-sport double in the same Olympics – none since 1928 – and the first to accomplish it in sports that use different equipment.

The athletes who steal the show at any Olympics are usually those who amass multiple medals, but if you’re 17 and so ridiculously good your victory was pretty much a formality, convention goes out of the door.

Already a wunderkind at age 13, when only age-restrictions prevented her from appearing in Sochi, Chloe Kim was, nonetheless, the perfect breakout star of (and for) PyeongChang; the daughter of two Korean immigrants in the United States who grew to become the embodiment of the millennial sports star: excitable, charming, laid-back, an engaging social media presence (even during competition..) and insanely talented in a youth-driven sport.

Soaring through the air, flipping and twirling with reckless abandon, Kim locked gold in the women’s snowboard halfpipe before her final attempt and proceeded to delivered a majestic coronation run, pulling off back-to-back 1080s for the first time in Olympic history to score a near-perfect 98.75 (out of 100) that sent the Phoenix Snow Park crowd into raptures.

If everything goes according to plan, at least three more Olympics are on the horizon for Chloe Kim, and that may be just enough time to breed a cult sports star ready to significantly elevate snowboard’s status inside the cluttered sports world. But no pressure, girl.

The Austrian superstar finally expunged the only knock on his claim to be the best Alpine skier of all-time, picking up his maiden Olympic titles with resounding victories in the giant slalom and alpine combined. Nonetheless, suffering a first DNF in more than two years on his trademark event, the slalom, has to sting just a little bit.

Natalie Geisenberger (Germany, Luge)

The third woman to defend the Olympic title in singles, joining countrywomen Steffi Martin Walter and Sylke Otto, Natalie Geisenberger also posted a field-best first run to power Germany’s Team Relay performance, resulting in a personal fourth Olympic Gold medal and fifth overall, both maximums amongst female lugers.

The Canadian pair grabbed first place in both ice dance components of the Team event, rewarding their nation’s unrestrained love with the maximum 20 pts to help secure Gold, and then skated to new WR-record performances in the short program and combined total of the ice dancing competition to rescue the Olympic title surrendered in 2014. Tessa and Scott have now amassed five Olympic medals together (three gold, two silver) and if that was truly the end, they’ll retire as the most decorated figure skaters of all-time.

Arriving to PyeongChang, South Korea, from all corners of the World, athletes from 15 different sports will battle for the 102 sets of medals available during the 2018 Winter Olympics, the ultimate reward for years of hard work and sacrifices in the name of a dream.

Unfortunately, this writer won’t be one of them, which means I can’t do much more than sit back, monitor the proceedings from my living room on the other side of the planet…and try to look smart doing so. But how? Well, by predicting the Olympic medal winners in advance and before the wind, unexpected temperatures, injuries, illnesses or just plain bad luck conspire to reshape the course of history.

Now, forecasting 100 different events is a lot for a single person, and since I won’t bother to trick you into thinking I have any idea who is going to take the freestyle skiing ladies’ aerials gold, let’s narrow the field to 28 events and my own Fab Four: Alpine skiing, Biathlon, Ice Hockey and Ski Jumping.

For full disclosure, the projections released by Sports Illustrated, the Associated Press and the statistical genius at Gracenote were consulted before publication, but the future will certainly prove my brilliance in comparison with the so-called experts and machines. Or not. Still, on a related note, can we, reasonable people with a functioning brain, agree that biathlete Laura Dahlmeier won’t leave Pyeonchang with six gold medals? Great. Let’s get down to business then.

Alpine Skiing

The Pyeongchang Games are expected to coronate overall World Cup leaders Marcel Hischer and Mikaela Shiffrin, but exactly how much metal can this star duo accumulate? Moreover, is Lindsey Vonn going to add a few extra Olympic honours to the 2 medals obtained in Vancouver 2010, further padding an already stellar career? Is comeback King Aksel Lund Svindal destined for greatness on his final Olympic appearance? There’s no shortage of intrigue ahead of the alpine skiing events of the 2018 Winter Olympics.

American Mikaela Shiffrin shined as an 18-year-old in Sochi 2014 and she’ll be looking for more gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics (GEPA/Mario Kneisl)

Men:

Downhill

Gold: Beat Feuz, Switzerland

Silver: Aksel Lund Svindal, Norway

Bronze: Matthias Mayer, Austria

World Champion Beat Feutz leads the downhill standings this season by virtue of 3 victories and 2 runner-up finishes in 7 races, and he’s the man to beat in the fastest of the alpine disciplines. Svindal should return to the Olympic podium at age 35, making up for the disappointment of Sochi, while an Austrian always seems to sneak into the podium in these occasions. My money is on defending Champion Matthias Mayer, wildly inconsistent but someone who’s been showing signs of life recently.

Super-G

Gold: Max Franz, Austria

Silver: Kjetil Jansrud, Norway

Bronze: Vincent Kriechmayer, Austria

Kjetil Jansrud defends the crown from Sochi and leads the World Cup charts at the moment, but he’s going to have his hands full with the Austrian armada. Between Franz, Kriechmayer and 2015 World Champion Hannes Reichelt, the most decorated Alpine country has nice probabilities of snatching multiple medals, and I believe the 28-year-old Franz is the man to devise the perfect run.

Combined

Gold: Alexis Pinturault, France

Silver: Marcel Hirscher, Austria

Bronze: Peter Fill, Italy

Alexis Pinturault has topped the Alpine combined standings in four of the last 5 seasons and he’s due a major title. The French will pick up gold after holding off the slalom charge of Marcel Hirscher. Veteran Peter Fill clocks the best time of the downhill run and then clings to the podium in the ensuing slalom.

Giant Slalom

Gold: Marcel Hirscher, Austria

Silver: Henrik Kristoffersen, Norway

Bronze: Ted Ligety, United States

If you’re as much as a casual alpine skiing spectator, you probably know Hirscher has yet to win an Olympic gold medal. That will end in PyeongChang, and as occurred in many previous instances this season, Henrik Kristoffersen will fill the bridesmaid role. After a first season podium on the GS of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ted Ligety won’t approach the top two nor impact the fight for his succession, but the American still manages to shrug away the opposition for bronze.

Slalom

Gold: Marcel Hirscher, Austria

Silver: Henrik Kristoffersen, Norway

Bronze: Luca Aerni, Switzerland

Triumphant in six of the seven slalom events he’s contested this season, Hirscher is the odds-on favourite for the Olympic crown, but Kristoffersen will, undoubtedly, be lurking around if the six-time overall World Cup Champion commits the most insignificant of mistakes. Aerni, the 24-year-old who won the Alpine Combined at the 2017 Worlds, pipes Michael Matt (Austria) for third.

Women:

Downhill

Gold: Lindsey Vonn, United States

Silver: Sofia Goggia, Italy

Bronze: Ragnhild Mowinckel, Norway

Vonn and Goggia starred on the final speed events ahead of the Olympics and they’ll again put their friendship on the line in South Korea, with the American prevailing to reclaim the downhill Olympic title. Mowinckel wins bronze to clinch Norway’s first ever medal for a female Alpine skier (all previous 29 were collected by men).

Super-G

Gold: Tina Weirather, Liechtenstein

Silver: Lara Gut, Switzerland

Bronze: Lindsey Vonn, United States

Four years after crashing in a downhill training run in Sochi, Tina Weirather finally emulates her mother, Hanni Wetzel, and becomes the second Olympic Champion from Liechtenstein. Fourth in 2014, current Super-G World Cup leader Lara Gut climbs two steps to claim silver, while Nicole Schmidhofer, the reigning World Champion, is bested by Lindsey Vonn for the final podium position.

Combined

Gold: Wendy Holdener, Switzerland

Silver: Mikaela Shiffrin, United States

Bronze: Federica Brignone, Italy

Repeating the triumph of last year’s World Championships, Wendy Holdener creeps ahead of Shiffrin, the Slalom Queen, to savour her maiden Olympic title. In an all-Italian battle for third, Brignone knocks Sofia Goggia and Marta Bassino out of podium contention while Lindsey Vonn straddles a gate in the slalom to DNF.

Giant Slalom

Gold: Viktoria Rebensburg, Germany

Silver: Mikaela Shiffrin, United States

Bronze: Tessa Worley, France

The most consistent GS competitor of the season, Rebensburg recaptures her Olympic crown four years after placing third in Sochi, therefore ending Shiffrin’s bid for 3+ titles in a single Olympics. A World Champion in 2013 and 2015, Tessa Worley makes up for the deception of missing the 2014 Olympics by rescuing the bronze medal.

Slalom

Gold: Mikaela Shiffrin, United States

Silver: Wendy Holdener, Switzerland

Bronze: Frida Hansdotter, Sweden

With an advantage of over one second, Mikaela Shiffrin blows the competition apart to secure a second consecutive gold medal in her signature event. The in-form Holdener settles for second, while 32-year-old Frida Hansdotter takes advantage of Petra Vlhová’s tentative run to steal third place from the Slovak’s hands.

(Mixed) Team Event

Gold: Austria

Silver: Switzerland

Bronze: France

Marcel Hirscher will bookend a spectacular Winter Olympics by guiding Austria to the top of the podium on the first Team event in Olympic history. A talented Switzerland ensemble guarantees silver by upsetting the France of Pinturault, Worley and Mathieu Favre in the semis, though the French rebound to push Sweden out of the picture in the small final.

Biathlon

Martin Fourcade and Johannes Thingnes Bø have monopolized attentions this winter by hoarding 14 of the 15 individual competitions staged so far in the biathlon World Cup season, and their multiple clashes are bound to set alight the Alpensia Biathlon Center, nevertheless don’t sleep on the women. Laura Dahlmeier will be looking to reproduce her unconceivable five gold, six-medal performance of last year’s World Championships, and she’ll be up against a smattering of powerful opponents, including Sochi’s dominant figure, Darya Domracheva, and the current World Cup leader, Kaisa Mäkäräinen.

Despite leading the sprint World Cup standings, Fourcade has only one victory to Bø’s three in this discipline in 2017-18, and the Norwegian has generally looked faster from the get-go at every World Cup stop. Therefore, we expect Johannes to take the first assault in Pyeongchang, with Martin Fourcade stopping the clock a few ticks later for silver. The steady Jacov Fak, World Champion in this discipline in 2012, concludes the podium lineup due to a clean shooting performance in a day where most of the other contenders will miss more than usual for lack of acclimation to the track and Olympic atmosphere.

12.5km Pursuit

Gold: Johannes Thingnes Bø, Norway

Silver: Martin Fourcade, France

Bronze: Emil Hegle Svendsen, Norway

Staying ahead of Fourcade during the Pursuit following his sprint successes hasn’t been a problem for Johannes Thingnes Bø this season, and we predict the same will happen at the Olympics. The 32-year-old Svendsen has picked up an Olympic medal in every other biathlon discipline between the 2010 and 2014 Games, and it would be neat if he managed to complete his set at the Pursuit.

15km Mass Start

Gold: Martin Fourcade, France

Silver: Johannes Thingnes Bø, Norway

Bronze: Tarjei Bø, Norway

The hectic Mass start is a race that gets Fourcade’s emotions flowing like no other, and the French will outlast his Norwegian rival here, erupting to victory by a comfortable margin. For his part, Johannes may string a few misses on the day, but his magnificent skiing form should pull him out of trouble and back into medal territory. Tarjei Bø will take a ride with his younger brother and land on the last podium position.

20km Individual

Gold: Martin Fourcade, France

Silver: Erik Lesser, Germany

Bronze: Johannes Thingnes Bø, Norway

Martin Fourcade is the reigning Olympic Champion in the 20km individual and he won three consecutive World titles in this event before the third place of Hochfilzen 2017. The clear favourite since the race suits his deliberate shooting style and skiing prowess, the French will win ahead of Erik Lesser in a repeat of Sochi’s results. Meanwhile, Johannes Bø is not at his best in biathlon’s longest individual effort, but this season he tied his rival in the discipline’s standings by capturing a victory and a third place, and the Norwegian has the legs to make ground on the rest in spite of one, maybe even two, extra misses.

4×7.5km Relay

Gold: France

Silver: Norway

Bronze: Germany

Anchored by the two stars of the season, the men’s relay is expected to come down to the Johannes Bø – Martin Fourcade final showdown, with the French likely to start a few seconds late. In top form, a Norwegian group with Svendsen, the Bø brothers and Ole Einar Bjorndalen would be nearly unbeatable, however the legend was left off the team and Lars Helge Birkeland, while a steady athlete, doesn’t have as much international experience as the French trio supporting Martin. Simply because I’m still salty due to the absence of the greatest Winter Olympian ever, I’ll edge my bets on France.

With an experienced and reliable group, the Germans only need to avoid shooting themselves in the foot to secure third ahead of Austria, Italy and the Swedes, who recently triumphed in Oberhof. Russia, who won at home soil four years ago, couldn’t clear enough athletes to form a team for PyeongChang.

Women:

7.5km Sprint

Gold: Laura Dahlmeier, Germany

Silver: Anastasiya Kuzmina, Slovakia

Bronze: Tiril Eckhoff, Norway

Dahlmeier has yet to showcase the dominant skiing form of 2016-17, yet I sense she’ll explode off the gates in South Korea, shooting clean to overcome Anastasiya Kuzmina, the sprint Champion from Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014. Tiril Eckhoff is usually at her best on the sprint, and the easy shooting range combined with an up-and-down track should suit her qualities, guiding the Norwegian to a second individual medal after the Mass Sprint of Sochi.

10km Pursuit

Gold: Kaisa Mäkäräinen, Finland

Silver: Laura Dahlmeier, Germany

Bronze: Denise Herrmann, Germany

Shut out of medal contention on the last two Winter Olympics, Kaisa Mäkäräinen will break her duck on the Pursuit, bursting ahead of Dahlmeier after the standing shootout to clinch an emotional victory. Denise Herrmann, the ultimate wild card with her lightning fast skiing and erratic shooting, will enjoy a good day in the office and power up the field to take the final podium position.

12.5km Mass Start

Gold: Laura Dahlmeier, Germany

Silver: Darya Domracheva, Belarus

Bronze: Justine Braisaz, France

Although Dahlmeier won’t amass five gold medals like last year, she’ll still head home with a stuffed trophy case. This race will provide her with another opportunity to ascend to the highest podium level, while Domracheva, the 2014 Mass start Champion, will scamper away from the opposition with the finish line in sight to secure silver. Building back her form through the week after an untimely illness, 21-year-old Justine Braisaz will claim bronze and a first career medal.

15km Individual

Gold: Darya Domracheva, Belarus

Silver: Dorothea Wierer, Italy

Bronze: Nadezhda Skardino, Belarus

Returning to the World Tour after a couple of lost seasons due to mononucleosis and pregnancy, Domracheva is unlikely to repeat her haul from Sochi, but she won’t leave empty-handed either. I trust the Belarussian will keep her cool on the shooting range, defend her Olympic title and be joined on the podium by her teammate Nadezhda Skardino, who will shoot clean to secure the top-three for a second consecutive Olympics. Dorothea Wierer, the winner of the last 15km individual race in Ruhpolding, showed clear progression as the Games approached, and that will merit a silver medal on the event where she’s tallied three of her four World Cup victories.

4x6km Relay

Gold: Germany

Silver: France

Bronze: Italy

Winners of seven of the last eight women’s relays, the German ladies should lock the Olympic title without too much trouble, and that will ring true even if they opt to save their trump card, Laura Dahlmeier, after the mixed relay. Surprising Champions in Sochi amidst political turmoil back home, Ukraine returns all four athletes and they’ll be in the mix again, but I just like more the blend of experience and youth on the French team. Moreover, Italy’s relay is filled with sharp-shooters and in Dorothea Wierer they have an excellent anchor, which should be enough to drive Ukraine away from the medals.

Mixed Biathlon Relay

Gold: Germany

Silver: France

Bronze: Norway

Swapping Tora Berger and Bjorndalen for Marte Olsbu (or Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold) and Johannes Thingnes Bø shouldn’t have a major effect on the strength of Norway’s relay compared to Sochi, yet the opposition looks stronger this time and the race difficult to handicap. Provided Martin Fourcade is in the lineup, France will exhibit a formidable unit, and Germany would be a pain to deal with if Dahlmeier checks out in front.

As the reigning World Champions, I’m picking the Germans to outlast a fierce French challenge for the title, with Norway dropping to third. Nonetheless, keep an eye on Italy, a credible threat to replicate the bronze of Sochi if Lukas Hofer and Dominik Windisch manage to keep their erratic shooting in check…

Ice Hockey

Canada swept the titles in the two most recent Winter Olympics, but without NHL players, they’ll be in a tough spot to emerge victorious out of the deep pool of candidates on the men’s side. Meanwhile, the women’s event should feature another North American battle between the Americans and the Canadians, and history has proven anything can happen when those two meet.

Canada beat the United States in the women’s ice hockey Final in Sochi 2014. These two teams should reconvene at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Men:

Gold: Sweden

Silver: Olympic Athletes of Russia

Bronze: Canada

Youngster Rasmus Dahlin steals the show and goaltender Viktor Fasth slams the door shut on the high-powered Russians, who leave the tournament disgruntled in spite of managing their best result since 1998. The makeshift Canadian team edges the hard-working Finns in a low-scoring bronze medal game.

Women:

Gold: United States

Silver: Canada

Bronze: Finland

The four-time defending World Champions USA finally get the best of Canada, ending their neighbours’ run of four consecutive Olympic gold medals after yet another memorable chapter of one of world sports most underrated rivalries. Before that, Finland’s star goalkeeper Noora Räty almost steals a Final birth, but Canada eventually progresses out of the semi-final in OT, leaving the much-improved Finns to outduel Sweden for third place.

Ski Jumping

Kamil Stoch reigned supreme in Sochi four years ago, and the Pole’s name is again at the very top of the shortlist of favourites, but duplicating the achievement won’t be easy as his path to victory is brimming with talented Germans and Norwegians.

Five weeks after an historical Four Hills Tournament sweep, Kamil Stoch defends his Normal Hill title by upstaging the dynamic German duo of Andreas Wellinger and Richard Freitag. Junshiro Kobayashi falls to fifth after posting the best mark of the first round, and he’s not the only Japanese to miss the mark since 45-year-old Noriaki Kasai also fails to follow up an excellent first attempt.

Large Hill

Gold: Andreas Wellinger, Germany

Silver: Stefan Kraft, Austria

Bronze: Daniel-André Tande, Norway

Poland’s Kamil Stoch is pestered by difficult wind conditions on his first jump and he wastes the chance to repeat the double triumph of Sochi. The 22-year-old Andreas Wellinger flies to victory, while reigning World Cup Champion Stefan Kraft finds his stride at the right time after a difficult season start. Daniel-André Tande scores an individual medal to lead a Norwegian team that places 4 men inside the top 10.

Team

Gold: Norway

Silver: Germany

Bronze: Poland

The World Cup leaders from Norway extract revenge from the poor showing of Sochi by riding their balanced foursome to the Olympic title. Poland’s Kamil Stoch sets a new hill-record on his final jump to push Germany in the battle for silver, but Richard Freitag answers the call in response to limit the losses for the 2014 Champions.

Women:

Normal Hill

Gold: Maren Lundby, Norway

Silver: Sara Takanashi, Japan

Bronze: Katharina Althaus, Germany

Maren Lundby, the runaway World Cup leader, battles the nerves to win the second ever women’s gold medal in ski jumping. After a field-best first attempt, four-time World Cup overall winner Sara Takanashi finds redemption from the fourth-place of Sochi by securing the runner-up spot, while Katharina Althaus, second on the World Cup standings, has to settle for bronze ahead of compatriot – and defending Champion – Carina Vogt.

The 2017 calendar year started with France beating Norway for the men’s World handball Championship title and destiny would have it that both nations would square off again 11 months later at the same stage of the women’s tournament. However, while the outcome was the same, the odds were radically different, with the Norwegians, clear underdogs last January in Paris, holding the cards in Hamburg after rampaging through the knockout stages of the tournament held in Germany since December 1st.

Reigning European and World Champions, the Norwegian ladies have dominated the women’s game for the last few seasons on the back of a lightning-fast attack, and as they demolished Olympic Champions Russia (34-17) in the quarter-finals and the Netherlands (32-23) in the semi-finals, they couldn’t spurn the favouritism ahead of Sunday’s clash in a sold-out Barclaycard Arena. Still, France, silver medallists at the 2016 Olympics, were widely regarded as the best defence in the world and that would make all the difference in the Final.

Not in the first 15 minutes, though, which Norway doubled with a 7-4 lead as the French struggled to put together good offensive plays, but from there onwards, with the length and athleticism that form the core of Les Bleus’ backline stifling Norway’s attempts to break through. Anchored by All-World goaltender Amandine Leynaud, who stopped a pair of 7m shots, the French rallied to take the lead at half time (11-10) despite suffering a series of 2m suspensions, and then emerged after the break to capitalize on their opponent’s frustration, born out of a putrid performance from their own goalkeepers – Kari Aalvik Grimsbø and Katrine Lunde, who both stopped more than 40% of shots until the Final, combined for 4/26 (15%) in the decider – and an inability to activate Tournament MVP and creative force Stine Oftedal.

Inside 37 minutes, France led 15-12, but then Norway’s veteran pivot Heidi Løke and influential shooters Nora Mørk – the tournament top goalscorer (66 goals) – and Veronica Kristiansen surged to re-establish the balance and heighten the tensions inside the arena. The score read 20-20 entering the last five minutes, a time when heroes were called to action, and Allison Pineau, the 2009 World Handball Player, answered the bell like she had done in similar circumstances against Sweden in the semi-final. Scoring twice to give France a crucial two-goal cushion late, Pineau joined stalwarts Béatrice Edwige and Camille Ayglon as they limited the Scandinavians to a single reply by Kristiansen, and it wasn’t long before Alexandra Lacrabère drilled the nail in Norway’s coffin with 20 seconds left on the clock.

Amandine Leynaud reacts after the last save of the World Championship Final against Norway (ihf.info)

With the surprising 23-21 win, France collected the second World Championship title of their history (five finals), avenging the loss to Norway in 2011 and succeeding the side that beat Hungary in Zagreb 2003 under the guidance of the same national coach, Olivier Krumbholz, while Norway were left to wait two more years for a fourth World crown.

In the third-place game, the Netherlands brushed aside Sweden (24-21, 14-8 at HT) despite going through a 15-min goalless spell in the second half. A recent powerhouse in women’s handball, this was a second consecutive World Championship medal for the Dutch, beaten by Norway in the 2015 Final, while Sweden achieved their best ever result as they had never finished better than sixth.

Alpine skiing: The return of Anna Veith

For Austrian Anna Veith (née Fenninger), the last couple of years have been a nightmare, with knee injuries and multiple surgeries wiping major parts of the two seasons that followed her overall World Cup titles in 2014 and 2015. The 2014 Super-G Olympic Champion reappeared on the World Tour earlier this month in Lake Louise, and after a string of cautious performances, found her stride in Val d’Isére on Sunday to pick up a World Cup victory for the 15th time on her career and first since March 2015.

A delighted Anna Veith celebrates her first World Cup victory after more than 2 years of injury setbacks (PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP-PHOTO)

Second off the blocks, the 28-year-old’s left knee held up on a furious Super-G descent in the French resort and Veith was thus able to stand, clearly emotional, on the top of the podium, with runner-up Tina Weirather, who clocked 0.48 seconds more, and third-place finisher Sofia Goggia (Italy) by her side. Skiing with a broken hand suffered after a nasty fall on Saturday, this was also an extraordinary result for the 28-year-old Weirather, the reigning Super-G World Cup Champion, while Goggia was similarly thrilled for a second podium on the 2017-18 season and on the French snow, since she was only beaten by Lindsey Vonn on Saturday’s rescheduled Super-G.

Moreover, Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel ranked third on Vonn’s record-extending 78th World Cup victory to claim a first career top-three finish, while the stop in Val D’Isère proved harmful for Viktoria Rebensburg’s hopes in the general classification. With Mikaela Shiffrin absent, the German could only gather 36 pts from her seventh place on Saturday before crashing out on Sunday and, consequently, the American star still leads the overall table by a comfortable 109 pts, with Weirather lagging a further 38 pts ahead of Tuesday’s giant slalom in Courchevel.

At the same time the women raced in France, the men started a trek through several Northern Italy ski resorts. In Val Gardena, on Friday, 28-year-old Josef Ferstl claimed his maiden World Cup win on a Super-G affected by difficult weather conditions, namely a thick fog that interrupted the race after competitor number 38. The German, whose previous career-best was a fifth place in 2016, edged Austrian’s Max Franz and Matthias Meyer by 0.02 and 0.1 seconds, respectively, but things would get back to normal over the weekend with the favourites emerging to the top of the standings.

Such was the case on Saturday’s Downhill, dominated by Norwegians Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Janrud, first and second ahead of Max Franz in Val Gardena, and on Sunday’s giant-slalom, contested in nearby Alta Badia and conquered for the fifth consecutive season by six-time crystal globe winner Marcel Hirscher.

A massive 1.70 seconds adrift, Norwegian prodigy Henrik Kristoffersen finished second for the fourth time this season – and the third behind Hirscher – while Slovenian Žan Kranjec made a podium appearance for the first time on his career. On the men’s overall classification, things are rather tight at this time, with Hirscher and Svindal sharing the lead with 374 points, and Kristoffersen (365) and Jansrud (329) on the hunt.

For the first time since 2013, the Biathlon World Cup made a stop in France, home of the men’s preeminent competitor of this decade, six-time overall Champion Martin Fourcade, however the 29-year-old had to fend off stiff competition from rival Johannes Thingnes Bø to celebrate in front of his fans in Annecy – Le Grand Bornand.

A fresh-faced 20-year-old back in 2013, Johannes Thingnes Bø picked up his first career World Cup wins in this very course, and two clean-shooting performances ensured that he would repeat the success in the sprint and pursuit competitions in 2017, thwarting Fourcade in consecutive days to reach a streak of four consecutive victories on the current season. For the home hero, a perfect shooting record was not enough on Friday, with the Norwegian out-skiing Fourcade by 21.1 seconds, and extending the gap with an extra 40 seconds on the next day’s pursuit after the French misfired twice.

Fourcade’s teammate, Antonin Guigonnat completed the sprint top-three for a first career podium finish, with Anton Shipulin joining Bø and Fourcade after the pursuit event, yet the script was eventually flipped on Sunday when Martin Fourcade finally delivered a win in the 15km Mass Start to the delight of the partisan crowd. With Johannes Thingnes Bø delayed by two early prone penalties, the Perpignan-native controlled the race, eschewed the competition just before the final visit to the shooting gallery, and then completed a mistake-free day to ski away towards victory, French flag in hand.

Making up ground throughout, his Norwegian foe was still able to finish second in the Mass Start, ahead of German Erik Lesser, and that means Fourcade and Bø go into the holiday break separated by only 20 pts (432-412) and far above anyone else.

French superstar Martin Fourcade leads the pack during the Mass Start event (biathlonworld.com)

Conversely, the women’s tour has been positively chaotic this season, with the yellow bib now resting on the body of a fifth different woman. Slovakian veteran Anastasiya Kuzmina had won the pursuit in Hochfilzen, her first success in three years, and with the triumph on the opening 7.5 km Sprint in Le Grand Bornand took the lead from Kaisa Mäkäräinen, yet she wouldn’t be able to repeat a clean-shooting performance on the pursuit, picking up four penalties as defending World Cup Champion Laura Dahlmeier, second on the sprint, took advantage to secure her first trophy of the season. Lisa Vitozzi, the 22-year-old Italian, climbed a spot from her sprint position to complete the pursuit podium, and off were the ladies for Sunday’s Mass Start which, like the men’s race, would provide ample fodder for celebration amongst the hosts.

Brimming with unpredictability, the 12.5km epilogue looked about to be clinched by German Denise Herrmann, but the former cross-country skier cratered on the last shooting position by failing to drop three of five targets, and opened the door for 22-year-old Justine Braisaz, whose clean performance was rewarded with a first career victory in front of her compatriots. Unheralded Belarussian Iryna Kryuko also fired to perfection and secured a first career podium, while Laura Dahlmeier made it three podiums out of three in Le Grand Bornand to amass valuable points as she navigates her way up the overall standings.

Justine Braisaz savours her first World Cup victory in Annecy-Le Grand Bornand on Sunday (biathlonworld.com)

Kuzmina, fourth in the Mass Start, will wear the yellow bib on January 4th, when the biathlon World Cup returns in Oberhof (Germany), even if Justine Braisaz (6 pts behind), Kaisa Mäkäräinen (21) and Denise Herrmann (26) are all in excellent position to upstage her after the break.

Ski jumping: Richard Freitag pads his overall lead in Engelberg

In inspired form since he grabbed the yellow bib in Nizhny Tagil, German Richard Freitag enjoyed another weekend of great success in Engelberg to distance his main rivals on the race for the ski jumping overall World Cup title.

In Central Switzerland, the 26-year-old came within a tenth of a point from sweeping the two individual events on the schedule as his second-place finish on Saturday was followed by a comprehensive triumph on Sunday’s competition, where Freitag compiled the best totals of both rounds (141.3 and 145.1) to leave Poland’s Kamil Stoch and Austria’s Stefan Kraft almost 12 pts behind. It was a fifth consecutive World Cup podium for the German and it didn’t double as a fourth win in five races simply because, 24 hours earlier, Norway’s Anders Fannemel benefitted from more favourable conditions during his first round attempt (133 m; 128.7 pts) to forge a lead that resisted Freitag’s 129m final jump by the shortest of margins (253.6 to 253.5 pts).

Richard Freitag soars through the sky of Engelberg and towards victory in the Ski Jumping World Cup event (dpa)

Double Olympic Champion Kamil Stoch locked third place on that occasion (250.8 pts), showing he’s rounding into form just in time for the defence of his Four Hills Tournament crown, however Freitag will undoubtedly be the man to beat when the World Tour reconvenes in Oberstdorf on the 30th of December to kick off this season’s edition of the iconic competition. With 7 of 23 individual events contested so far, Freitag’s 550 pts lead the overall race with compatriot Andreas Wellinger maintaining second place (399 pts) after back-to-back sixth positions in Engelberg, and Norwegian Daniel André Tande slotting third with 356 points.

On the women’s World Cup, history was made with the completion of a first ever team event on Saturday. Hinterzarten, a village in Germany’s Black Forest, played host to Japan’s victory, with Yuki Ito, Kaori Iwabuchi, Yuka Seto and Sara Takanashi edging the teams from France and Russia as favourites Germany were held back by Svenja Wuerth’s crash in the first round, and would later crown Norwegian Maren Lundby as the winner of the individual competition ahead of local favourite Katharina Althaus and defending World Cup Champion Sara Takanashi. With the victory, Lundby caught Althaus on the overall classification, both women accumulating 360 pts after 4 events.

The Japanese team (Sara Takanashi, Kaori Iwabuchi, Yuka Seto and Yuki Ito, L-R) that won the inaugural team event in women’s Ski Jumping World Cup history (KYODO)

Football: Inter Milan picks up first defeat of the season

Entering round 17, Inter Milan were the only team yet to taste defeat in the Serie A to merit top of the league honours, yet that would end on Saturday afternoon as Udinese stormed into San Siro to shellshock Luciano Spalleti’s side.

It was still lunch time when Lasagna was served by Kevin in the 14th minute, and while Mauro Icardi responded almost instantaneously, the prolific striker couldn’t do the same in the second half, with Rodrigo de Paul and Antonin Barak burying the leaders and the 1-3 scoreline meaning that the Nerazzurri would return first-place to Napoli, who rode a fast start and three goals inside thirty minutes to claim victory in Torino (1-3). Keeping the three-goal mantra, Juventus passed comfortably in Bologna (0-3) to also leapfrog Inter, while Roma got within two points of the former leaders when center-back Federico Fazio nodded home a 94th minute winner against Cagliari (1-0) at the Stadio Olimpico.

Losing ground for the second consecutive week, Lazio drew 3-3 in Bergamo against Atalanta to fall five points back of their city rivals, whereas AC Milan confirmed the jolt provided by Gennaro Gattuso’s appointment has already evaporated. Facing a Hellas Verona they had swiftly beaten 3-0 in mid-week Italian Cup action, the Rossoneri got handed back a similar score to deepen their (on-field) problems.

Bundesliga

The last round of matches before a month-long winter break was once again positive for Bayern Munich, whose 0-1 victory in Stuttgart, courtesy of Thomas Muller’s goal, helped extend their lead to 11 pts. It’s true that the Bavarian giants felt a pinch of fear before Sven Ulreich saved a penalty in stoppage time, but they soon forgot the scare when the rest of the weekend’s results started falling their way, beginning with Schalke 04’s 2-2 draw in Frankfurt.

Truth be told, it could have been even worst for the visitors if not for another late rally, with Breel Embolo and Naldo – once again in the 95th minute – salvaging a point that served them well after RB Leipzig incredibly wasted an 82-minute man-advantage, at home, to Hertha Berlin (2-3).

On a four-game winless streak, last year’s runner-up were caught at 28 pts by Borussia Moenchengladbach, who beat Hamburg by 3-1 on Friday, Bayer Levekusen, challenged by Hannover to a goal-filled 4-4 draw, and Borussia Dortmund, who followed their breakthrough victory mid-week with a second win under new coach Peter Stoger.

And while American Christian Pulisic notched BVB’s game-winner in the 89th minute to defeat Hoffenheim (2-1) at the Signal Iduna Park, the most relevant goal of the weekend belonged to another Christian, FC Köln’s Clemens, since it would secure his team a first victory of the campaign (1-0 vs Wolfsburg) after just three draws in the initial 16 matches of 2017-18.

Ligue 1

Fresh off dumping Olympique Marseille out of the League Cup, sixth-place Stade Rennais may have entertained thoughts of troubling the mighty Paris St. Germain, but they soon understood there’s not a lot any defence can do when the MCN (Mbappé-Cavani-Neymar) is on a good day. PSG’s stars, especially an irrepressible Neymar, crafted two goals inside 17 minutes, added two more after Firmin Mubele discounted, and left Rennes with a 4-1 victory that pushes their goal-scoring average to over 3 goals per game….

The Parisians are, undoubtedly, having fun on their journey to recapture the French title but, this week, Monaco found a way to match their output after right back Djibril Sidibé opened the scoring at St. Etiénne in the third minute and the home team unravelled. With the 1-4 loss, Les Verts, winless since October 14th, continue their free-fall on the Ligue 1 table, while the defending Champions kept pace with Olympique Lyon, who overcame Marseille (2-0) in the main clash of round 18. In a battle of teams riding opposing trends, the plunging Bordeaux lost in Nice (1-0) after Mario Balotelli fired Les Aiglons to a fourth consecutive victory and possession of sixth-place, the top of a congested zone that sees 7th (Rennes) and 18th (Lille) separated by just 8 pts.

La Liga

When FC Barcelona steps into the Santiago Bernabéu next Saturday to contest the first “El Clásico” of 2017-18, they’ll do so with the backing of a fluffy 11-point gap that shifts all the pressure into the hosts’ corner. In the same week their heart rivals picked up the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup in the UAE, the Catalans obtained a straightforward 4-0 triumph over Deportivo La Coruña – the goals divided equally by Paulinho and Luis Suárez – to reach win 13 in 16 games and increase, by a point, the advantage over the second place, now owned by Atlético Madrid.

In customary manner, Atleti did just enough to eke out a win in round 16, with Fernando Torres scoring the lone tally against Alavés at the Wanda Metropoliano, and the capital side profited from Valencia’s second consecutive thud away from the Mestalla to climb a step. At Eibar, Los Che succumbed 2-1 to drop to third, eight points from the top, and Real Madrid can match their 34 points when they play their deferred appointment with Leganés. Moreover, fifth-place Sevilla, embarrassed by the defending Champions in the previous round, stuttered at home to Levante (0-0) to lose a chance of closing on the top-four.

Premier League

The Tottenham Hotspur of Mauricio Pochettino are no ordinary football team, but that was very much what they looked like as Man City steamrolled another opponent to add success No. 16 of their remarkable win streak. The conclusive 4-1 score established the huge gap between the voracious machine engineered by Pep Guardiola and one of its supposed challengers, now stuck an incredible 21 points behind, however it’s time we recognize that City’s chasers haven’t necessarily performed badly even if they’re a mile away from the top.

For instance, Manchester United collected another hard-fought victory, the 13th in 18 games, at the Hawthorns, holding off a determined West Bromwich (1-2), while Chelsea have won six of the last eight following a 1-0 triumph over Southampton secured by Marcos Alonso’s free kick from distance. Eleven and 14 points, respectively, separate these two from Man City, and round 18 also delivered victories for the next tier, as Arsenal beat Newcastle (1-0) by virtue of a Mesut Özil left-foot volley, and Liverpool hammered Bournemouth (0-4) to return to the right path after a couple of draws.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the table, Crystal Palace, who started the season with 7 consecutive defeats, went to Leicester, pulled out a 3-0 victory, and left the relegation zone for the first time this season.

Moment of the week

We skimmed past it in this roundup since the competition is stacked towards the most powerful sides and, really, not that interesting, nonetheless a World title is a World title and the Cup-clinching goal something to remember.

In Real Madrid’s victory over South American Champions Grêmio at the FIFA Club World Cup final, the difference was a throwback goal from 2017 Ballon D’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, and as a powerful free kick that nicked through the defensive wall to break the deadlock, it holds definitive merits worthy of inclusion here.

Have you noticed how cold it is out there these days? Well, I’m fortunate to be writing these words in my balmy South European location, but athletes around the world are already feeling the effects of the winter temperatures in frigid locations such as Sweden and Russia at a time the World Cup seasons for the most followed winter sports are just getting into a rhythm.

Over the last week, a bunch of events took place in chilly weather, which means we have a lot to review. Let’s get to it right away or, in alternative, feel free to scroll down to our football section.

Ski jumping: German double in Nizhny Tagil

Located 25km east of the virtual border between Europe and Asia, Nizhny Tagil is not only the most oriental point to be visited by the 2017-18 Ski Jumping World Cup, but also the place where Germany made loud and clear that, even without Severin Freund, they’ll be a force to be reckoned with throughout this Olympic season.

Regarded as the two most talented athletes on the German team, Richard Freitag and Andreas Wellinger were tasked with stepping up this year, and they showed their class in the Tramplin Stork over the weekend, splitting the two individual events contested in Russia, lifting their country to the top of the Nations Cup, and etching their names one-and-two in the race for the overall title after the third stop of the season.

Richard Freitag celebrates his victory on the first individual competition in Nizhny Tagil (FIS-Ski.com)

On Saturday, Karl Geiger (another German) led the way after the first round with 135.1 pts, yet the fireworks were reserved for the two best Norwegians of the moment. Daniel-André Tande and Johann André Forfang smashed the trampoline’s record in succession by landing at 141m and 141.5m, respectively, however that wasn’t enough to hold off the 26-year-old Freitag, who rose from eight after the break to clinch his sixth World Cup victory. A 137m leap resulted in a 141.4 point-tally in the final round and an accumulated score of 267.5 pts, which Tande came just 0.6 pts short off. Meanwhile, the third place finisher (Forfang) and the duo Stefan Kraft / Andreas Wellinger were separated by a tenth of a second and a mere 3.3 points removed from the top.

With such tight margins, Geiger slipped to sixth in the classification of the first individual event, and the next day he watched as his two colleagues put on a show again. Jumping 132m for a score of 137 pts, the 22-year-old Wellinger set the standard after the first attempt, and then he coupled it with 138 pts to secure a third career triumph, besting Freitag, who followed the example of Saturday to escalate from fourth to second after a second jump worth 142 pts, and defending World Cup Champion Stefan Kraft, who finished third.

Another German, Markus Eisenbichler, ended in fourth, preceding Daniel-André Tande on the day and, in result, the first four men in the general classification are just 80 pts apart, Freitag leading with 270 pts and Wellinger, Tande and Kraft chasing. Junshiro Kobayashi, who carried the yellow bib after Wisla and Ruka, didn’t compete in Russia but he should be back next week when Freitag will usher the ski jumping circus into Titisee-Neustadt, in the South of Germany.

Moreover, in Lillehammer, Norway, the female World Cup kicked off with three events at the Lysgårdsbakken hill. Home favourite Maren Lundby won the first competition on Friday, overcoming the challenge of Germany’s Katharina Althaus, but the pair exchanged spots on Saturday and Sunday, with Althaus picking up both triumphs. Therefore, the 21-year-old conquered the first Lillehammer Triple overall and assumed the ladies’ World Cup lead, 20 pts ahead of Lundby and 120 above defending Champion Sara Takanashi, of Japan.

Biathlon: Denise Herrmann skis away from the opposition in Östersund

With the two women who dominated the IBU World Cup last year, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier and Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová, missing the action in Östersund, the chance to leave a mark in the season-opening stop was there for the taking, and no one took better advantage of it than 28-year-old Denise Herrmann.

A seven-year veteran of the cross-country World Tour who embraced the challenge of picking up the rifle and changing sports in 2016, Herrmann failed to break into the top 10 in any individual event in 2016-17 as her shooting was still a work in progress, yet another summer of hard work payed off handsomely in Sweden this week.

German Denise Herrmann made the difference on the skiing sections in Östersund (biathlonworld.com)

Flying around the tracks in a tier beyond her rivals, Herrmann needed accuracy at the spot to compound the lightning-fast skiing of a former sprinter, and she got it on Friday’s Sprint (7.5 km) race after a single (standing) penalty allowed her to leave the closest competition, France’s Justine Braisaz and Ukraine’s Juliya Dzhyma, more than 15 seconds behind.

The two women that flanked the German on the podium cleaned and still couldn’t muster enough to snatch victory, and the same would happen on Sunday’s Pursuit, with Herrmann giving away her initial advantage over an immaculate Braisaz after picking up two standing penalties, but eventually dashing to the finish line in the final skiing section.

Justine Braisaz, Denise Herrmann and Juliya Dzhyma (L to R). The podium in the Sprint in Östersund (biathlonworld.com)

Although the 21-year-old Braisaz had to settle for two runner-up positions in Östersund, she came away with the yellow bib and the World Cup overall lead by virtue of her eight-place on Wednesday’s 15km individual event, where Herrmann finished 23rd. They move to Hochfilzen, Austria, where the next events will be held, separated by 4 pts, while Belarus’ Nadezhda Skardino is 13 pts from the top following a week where she collected her first World Cup triumph (in the individual competition) and dropped an incredible 50-of-50 in the shooting range.

Martin Fourcade’s perseverance delivers Pursuit victory

Since 2011-12, when he won his first (of six consecutive) overall World Cup titles, Martin Fourcade has always collected (at least) an individual victory in the season-opener yet, to keep the streak going, the French superstar had to labour until the final competition in Östersund.

On Sunday, after podium finishes in the individual (3rd) and sprint (2nd) events, Fourcade could finally celebrate as he demolished the competition on the Pursuit to cross the finish line almost 50 seconds before second place Jakov Fak (Slovenia). Firing fast and to perfection at the standing position as the opposition struggled with the difficult wind conditions, Fourcade opened a gap in the third shooting stop, when Tarjei Boe had to fulfil three penalty laps, and then controlled the race, no one in sight to steal his moment as had happened with his Norwegian rivals in the previous two events.

Martin Fourcade celebrates after cleaning the standing sections at the Pursuit in Östersund (Biathlonworld,com)

On Thursday, Johannes Thingnes Boe went 20-for-20 to capture his 14th career victory and first ever in the 20-km individual race, leaving Fourcade 2:14 min behind after the French botched two shots in the final standing position while, two days later, his brother Tarjei Boe swiped the triumph from under the nose of Martin with some late heroics on the 10km Sprint. Leaving the blocks with bib 94, the 2010-11 Total Score Champion thrived on the faster conditions, and capitalized on his one-shot performance to squeeze Fourcade’s time by 0.7 seconds, thus securing a first World Cup victory in more than 4 years.

Pushed by his rivals but not toppled, Fourcade left Östersund in his usual position, the top of the overall charts, with his 162 pts being 31 more than teammate Quentin Fillon Maillet, second in the individual event and third in the pursuit in Sweden, and 44 above Johannes Thingnes Boe’s total. They’ll renew festivities in Hochfilzen later this week.

On the same week the New Yorker published an in-depth profile on the upbringing of Mikaela Shiffrin, the “best slalom skier in the World”, the American superstar went out in Lake Louise, Canada, to push the boundaries of her achievements and showcase the ambition to be the best skier ever. A savant in the technical disciplines, Shiffrin has steadily honed her speed chops over the last couple of seasons, but it was still stunning to see it all coalesce on the first speed events of the 2017-18 season.

With two downhills and a Super-G on the agenda, the 22-year-old collected the first (speed) podium finish of her career on Friday, finishing 0.3 seconds off the pace of Austria’s Cornelia Huetter, who took her maiden downhill victory, and 0.21 seconds behind Tina Weirather, of Liechtenstein. Astonishing performance from an athlete that had never classified better than 13th in the most heralded of the alpine disciplines, yet the American phenomenon upped her level even more the following day, claiming victory in the 2nd downhill race of the week by brushing aside Viktoria Rebensburg, the winner of the first two GS of the year who clocked 0.13 seconds more, and surprising Swiss Michelle Gisin, who claimed a downhill podium finish for the first time.

On Sunday’s Super-G the standings provided a more familiar outlook, with Weirather and Swiss Lara Gut, the last two Super-G World Cup Champions, grabbing the top-two positions and reigning Super-G World Champion, Austrian Nicole Schmidhofer, completing the podium as Shiffrin punched the fifth-best time to bookend a marvellous weekend that wasn’t nearly as sweet for another American star, 33-year-old Lindsey Vonn.

Tina Weirather, of Liechtenstein, won the Super-G in Lake Louise (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP)

At “Lake Lindsey”, where she has racked up a mind-boggling 18 World Cup victories and 25 podiums, the veteran crashed out in the first event of the week, recuperated to complete the second in a disappointing 12th place, and then tumbled again on Sunday to collect another DNF. Not a promising season start for Vonn, who has missed a lot of time in recent years due to similar falls, and whose dream of fighting for a fifth overall World Cup title – and a first since 2011-2012 – is already all but over in the face of Shiffrin’s prowess. With 7 of 39 races contested, the defending Champion has already amassed 510 points against the 336 of Viktoria Rebensburg and the 234 of Tina Weirather.

Aksel Lund Svindal and Marcel Hirscher open their accounts in 2017-18

The Birds of Prey course in Vail/Beaver Creek, with his myriad jumps bearing the names of native flying animals, is one of the most emblematic on the Alpine Ski World Tour calendar, and a place where the best male skiers always strive to perform at their very best. With 25 crystal globes between themselves, Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal and Austrian Marcel Hirscher are two of greatest of all-time, and they showed why this weekend, picking up victories shortly after coming back from injury.

On Saturday’s downhill, the 33-year-old Svindal set the pace at 1:40:46min when he raised the curtain with bib No.1, and none of the other competitors would better his time, allowing the two-time overall World Cup Champion an unparalleled fourth downhill triumph (2009, 2014, 2016) in Beaver Creek. Winner of the discipline’s season opener in Lake Louise last week, Switzerland’s Beat Feuz finished as the runner-up for a third time on the American resort, with German Thomas Dreßen completing the podium for a first top-three position of his career.

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal prepares to hit the snow after a jump during the downhill in Beaver Creek (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

Meanwhile, after the cancellation of Sölden’s giant slalom, the event’s specialists had their first opportunity to shine in Beaver Creek and the victory would fall to a familiar face. Barely four months removed from a serious ankle injury, Marcel Hirscher posted a field-best second run to dispossess German Stefan Luitz from the top position and secure a fourth career win in the Birds of Prey. Making a charge from seventh, Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen claimed second, while Luitz hanged for a fifth career podium after edging Manuel Feller (Austria) by a hundred of a second.

To the dismay of the home crowd, American Ted Ligety fell from second to seventh in the second leg and, consequently, the hosts were shut down of the podium all together since Friday’s Super-G also did not go their way. Taking the spoils, Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr celebrated a maiden World Cup triumph by pipping defending Super-G WC Champion Kjetil Jansrud by 0.23 seconds, and compatriot Hannes Reichelt by 0.33.

Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr sprays champagne after his maiden World Cup victory in the Super-G of Beaver Creek (AP-PTI)

In the men’s overall classification, Team Norway’s Svindal and Jansrud are separated by just four points (249-245), with Beat Feuz in third (208). The technical events return next weekend, with giant slalom and slalom races in Val d’Isère (France), while the ladies land in St. Moritz (Switzerland) to tackle two Super-G races and the first of the two alpine combined events of the season.

Football: Juventus wins at the San Paolo as Inter Milan seizes first place in the Serie A

Napoli held a piece of the Serie A lead for the first 14 rounds, but their tenure came to an end on Friday after a painful defeat against arch-rivals Juventus at their own ground. To add salt to the wound, the only marker inside a flaming San Paolo was laid by Gonzalo Higuaín, the former-idol-turned-public-enemy who sealed a blistering counter attack devised by Paulo Dybala in the 12th minute. Harnessing the furious charge by the hosts, the reigning Champions locked down the valuable 0-1 score, and cut the gap between the sides to one point, Napoli’s 38 pts and Juventus’ 37 trailing the 39 accumulated by Inter Milan.

Reawakened under Luciano Spalleti, I Nerazzuri throttled Chievo at San Siro, with Croatian Ivan Perisic authoring three of the five unanswered goals and Mauro Icardi notching a league-leading 16th, and they will defend their new position and season invincibility at the Juventus Stadium next weekend. The blockbuster encounter of round 16 will be another chapter in this wildly-entertaining Serie A season, yet the Scudetto-race isn’t limited to the top-three. With 34 points amassed after a 3-1 victory over SPAL, AS Roma’s game-in-hand can make it even more interesting, and Lazio is in the same position, their 32 pts padded by a late turnaround (1-2) at Sampdoria.

In different circumstances, Gennaro Gattuso’s first game in charge continued AC Milan’s futility. Visiting the lowly Benevento, who carried the red lantern with 0 pts after 14 games, the Rossoneri conceded a late tying goal (2-2) that dropped them to 8th. Milan’s 21 pts put them closer to the relegation zone than the Champions League positions…

Premier League

Over the last 13 years, the coaching rivalry between José Mourinho and Arsène Wenger has filled countless paper columns as the Portuguese usually got the better of the Frenchman and, this weekend, the story was much of the same.

At the Emirates, Arsenal attacked furiously and forced a superb David de Gea to tie the top-flight record for most saves in a single match (14), yet Manchester United came away with the vital three points after two away goals inside 11 minutes set the tempo of the match. Both sides would score in the second half to set the concluding 1-3, and while Paul Pogba’s send-off throws a wrench into United’s plans for next week’s showdown with Man City at Old Trafford, they’ll be relieved to live a few more days with the 8-pt difference.

Surprised by Angelo Ogbonna’s tally at the end of the first half, the leaders solved the issue on hand Sunday with another late goal – David Silva’s outstretched boot directing Kevin de Bruyne’s sweet deliver into West Ham’s net (2-1) – and amassed consecutive win number 13 to inch closer to the Premier League record. A triumph for City in the coming derby would do it, but they’ll have more than a few folks rooting against it for the sake of a competitive league. In fact, Chelsea, 11 pts adrift after beating Newcastle 3-1, Liverpool, 14 pts behind after thrashing Brighton (1-5) ahead of the Liverpool Derby, Arsenal (15) and Tottenham, a massive 18 pts from the top after tying 1-1 at Watford, can’t do much more than cheer on the Red Devils.

Ligue 1

Paris Saint-Germain’s 2-1 defeat at Strasbourg, their first of the season in any competition, was a major surprise, but it is unlikely to evolve into more than a minor blip on their campaign. Resting Edinson Cavani and Marco Verrati, the Parisians’ machine stuttered in the stronghold of the newly-promoted side, however their lead only shrank by a point, from 10 to 9, after second-place Olympique Marseille took their turn giving away points.

Monaco had lost in the previous weekend and Olympique Lyon followed suit mid-week against Lille, hence L’OM drew at Montpellier (1-1) Sunday to tumble back to fourth on the heels of Monaco’s 1-0 win over Angers, secured with an early goal from Radamel Falcao, and Lyon’s 2-1 triumph in Caen. As we said last week, the race for second is going to be fun, and a team like fifth-place Nantes (1-1 at St. Etiénne) is still not out of it.

La Liga

When Argentine Maxi Gómez poked in Celta de Vigo’s equalizer (2-2) at the Camp Nou on Saturday morning, the Catalans thought things at the top of La Liga were about to get more uncomfortable, but that was not what happened. Though the leaders ended up conceding the third draw of the campaign, and second in succession, they received unexpected gifts to increase their grip of first place.

For it, they can thank another forgettable night for Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid, held to a goalless draw against Athletic Bilbao at San Mamés (0-0), and Valencia’s first loss of the season in Getafe (1-0). Los Che proved unable to exploit a man-advantage for 65 minutes, and conceded a goal shortly past the hour mark, but not every piece of news was good for Barcelona.

For instance, they lost centre-back Samuel Umtiti for the next few weeks due to injury, and watched Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann salvage a late win for his current club (2-1) against his former team, Real Sociedad. With the victory, the still-unbeaten Atletico are now 6 pts behind the leaders, 1 off Valencia’s pace and two above city-foes Real Madrid, who were caught by Sevilla (2-0 vs Deportivo) at 28 pts ahead of their clash in the Spanish capital in round 15.

Bundesliga

The opening created by Bayern Munich’s setback in round 14 vanished as quickly as it appeared after the Bavarians overcame a spirited Hannover 96 at the Allianz Arena (3-1). The defending Champions couldn’t relax until Robert Lewandowski bagged his 14th goal of the season in the 87th minute yet, in the end, these were a really good couple of days for the German giants.

It started when second-place RB Leipzig were routed 4-0 by Hoffenheim, with Bayern loanee Sèrge Gnabry netting a brace, and continued as third-place Schalke 04 surrendered a home draw to bottom-feeders FC Koln (2-2).

Following the example set forth by the competition, fourth-place Borussia Moenchengladbach also fell flat in Wolfsburg, leaving under the weight of a three-goal loss (3-0), and the other Borussia, the yellows of Dortmund, delayed their revival with another tie in a regional affair in Leverkusen (1-1). As a result, six points distance first and second, while the bridge between Leipzig and ninth-place Bayer Leverkusen is worth just five.

Moment of the weekend

Easiest pick in a long time, for sure.

Entering the 95th minute of their reception to AC Milan, last-place Benevento were staring the abyss of yet another defeat in the Serie A, the 15th in equal number of matches. A few seconds later, euphoria raged inside the inconspicuous Stadio Ciro Vigorito in the small city of the South of Italy, the reason being a miraculous last-gasp equalizer by the most implausible of all sources, goalkeeper Alberto Brignoli.

The minnows had to wait a long time for their first ever top-flight point, but there’s simply no way anyone could have written a better script than Brignoli’s sensational diving header in the cusp of the final whistle. It was an unforgettable moment for the people of Benevento, and for a club whose stay amongst Italy’s best will, more than likely, be a short one.

Benevento's goalkeeper Brignoli scores against Milan to get their 1st point in Serie A. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂Mamma mia 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/kCpAkWdrRc

On his first stint (1991-92) as France’s Davis Cup captain, Yannick Noah won a Davis Cup, breaking a 59-year drought. On his second spell, between 1995 and 1998, he lifted a second Cup in 1996. In his first period in charge of France’s Fed Cup team, the former World No.3 in singles conquered the country’s maiden trophy.

Success wearing the colours of his nation may have eluded the 1983 Roland Garros Champion as a player, a lost final in 1982 the closer he got to clutching the trophy, but the boisterous Noah has more than made up for it as a coach, a leader and an inspirational figure for French tennis. The latest title, in front of a pulsating crowd in Lille, is simply another feather in his cap, the magical touch of Yannick Noah the solution for another long drought, this one particularly ridiculous due to France’s unmatched depth of top players at the men’s highest levels.

The Davis Cup Final contested between France and Belgium at the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium this weekend was intense, spiced by the rivalry of neighbouring nations and, obviously, emotional, but lacked the drama that could only come from titanic, enduring clashes where the tension hikes through the roof and any mistakes can mean the end of a lifelong dream. The Final series went the distance (3-2) yet, outside of the doubles rubber, every match followed the script put forth in the first set, with the victors racing to claim the spoils in just three sets.

Ricard Gasquet (L) and Pierre-Hugues Herbert (R) celebrate their victory in the third match of the 2017 Davis Cup Final (Pascal Rossignol, Reuters)

Take the example of the first match, between World No. 18 Lucas Pouille and the in-form David Goffin, the Belgium linchpin clawing his way to a 7-5 triumph in the first set before dispatching the next two (6-3, 6-1), obtaining a maiden victory over Pouille in four confronts. Or that of the second encounter, when French No. 1 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vanquished World No.76 Steve Darcis in the three quick sets (6-3, 6-2, 6-1) to level the proceedings. Naturally, it would happen twice more on Sunday, with Goffin toppling Tsonga in a straight sets (7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-2) blockbuster after surviving a frantic first set where he saved six break points, and Pouille redeeming himself in front of friends and family with an imperious, Cup-clinching performance (6-3, 6-1, 6-0) over the overmatched Darcis.

In between, on Saturday, a four-set affair vindicated Yannick Noah’s bold decision to drop Nicolas Mahut from the squad and play his regular partner, Pierre-Hugues Herbert, on his offside and besides the exquisite Richard Gasquet. After claiming the first set, the French pair surrendered the second to Belgium’s Ruben Bemelmans and Joris de Loore, but stepped up with the visitors serving at 5-3 in the third, hustling to claim victory in 6-1, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4.

A win in the third rubber that would essentially render useless the two triumphs secured by the unwavering Goffin – the best player in the series and now 21-3 in Davis Cup single’s action – since “Mr Davis Cup” Steve Darcis never looked about to unveil his “superhero” cape in Lille.

Instrumental to eliminate Germany in the first round (when Goffin was missing), the 33-year-old had a perfect record in five Davis Cup fifth rubbers, yet he proved no match to a fired-up Pouille on Sunday, and as the large French contingent (the Champions used 8 (!) different players en route to the title) mugged the elated winner, Belgium were left to lick the wounds of a third lost Final, and second in three years after capitulating to Great Britain in 2015.

France 🇫🇷 wins the #DavisCup!@la_pouille defeats Steve Darcis 63 61 60 to clinch a 10th title for the French

As for France, the 2017 title is their first since 2001 and the 10th in history, matching Great Britain and lagging way behind the totals of Australia (28) and the USA (32). In the last 16 years, the French went to the Final on three occasions, with the most recent taking place three years ago in this very same venue and against a fellow neighbour: the Switzerland of Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka.

With the Davis Cup World Group wrapped up, the 2017 tennis season is finally over at the top-level, but it won’t take long before the stars of the sport return to the courts. In just five weeks, they’ll be back in action and, in seven, the first Grand Slam of 2018 will kick off in Melbourne.

Winter sports

Biathlon: Norway triumphs in the first mixed relay of the season

Stuck right in the centre of Sweden, the city of Östersund usually hosts the inaugural events of the IBU Biathlon World Cup and the beginning of the 2017-18 season was no different.

With the first individual events only scheduled for the end of the week, two relays raised the curtain on Sunday to provide a first glimpse of the athletes’ form in an Olympic year. As usual when multiple relays take place in the same day, strategy took a huge part in defining the allocation of resources for each race, and in Östersund the teams from Norway and Austria reaped the benefits of their choices as France misfired badly by putting all of their eggs in a single basket.

The members of Norway’s mixed relay team show the medals from Östersund (Photo: IBU/biathlonworld)

Tapping their best male and female athletes for the single mixed relay (2 x 6km + 2x 7.5 km (M)), the French were clear favourites to repeat the victory of last year, but were ultimately betrayed by a terrible shooting day from their star pair. Martin Fourcade and Marie Dorin Habert combined for 10 blanks on the day, and not even their speed over the skis could reel them back, ending up in a four-team sprint for third which Kazakhstan (Galina Vishnevkaya /Maxim Braun) brilliantly won.

Runner-up in 2016, the Austrian duo of Lisa Theresa Hauser and Simon Eder rode a brilliant shooting performance, missing just two targets, to claim victory in the early afternoon of Östersund, while Germany’s Vanessa Hinz and Erik Lesser finished second despite nine spares.

By sending a secondary unit to the single mixed relay, Norway put their faith in the strongest possible quartet (Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, Tiril Eckhoff, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Emil Hegle Svendsen) for the mixed relay (2x 6km (2 W) + 2x 7.5 km mixed relay (2M)) event, and through ups and downs, eventually came out on top. With the ladies leading the line, Sweden’s Hanna Öberg and Finland’s Kaisa Makarainen transmitted in the lead after the first and second exchanges, respectively, however it was Italy who closed the third leg in first place after Dominik Windisch cleared all targets.

Anchor Lukas Hofer took over with a 23-second advantage over Slovakia and Norway, but he struggled badly on the prone position, served a penalty lap and ceded control to Norway and veteran Emil Hegle Svendsen, who would stumble in the last shooting range. Needing three spares to pass, he let the chasers get within 5 seconds, but the 2010-11 Total Score winner would hold off the streaking Hofer (who blitzed the standing shots) to secure the win ahead of Italy. Germany took bronze, with Arnd Peiffer overthrowing Matej Kazar and the surprising Slovakia in the last climb.

Ski jumping: Jernej Damjan records shocking win in Ruka

At age 34 and with a single individual World Cup triumph listed on his résumé (Sapporo, 2014), Slovenian Jernej Damjan is far from a leading figure in his national team, much less the Ski Jumping World Tour. However, all it takes to grasp the spotlight in this sport are two inspired jumps in succession, and that’s precisely what Damjan manage on Sunday in the Rukatunturi large hill (HS 142), beating a smattering of Norwegians and Germans for a superb triumph under the Finnish sky.

Pure joy reflected on the face of Slovenian veteran Jernej Damjan after his astonishing triumph in Ruka (Reuters)

Out of nowhere, Damjan jumped 140m in the first round to take the surprising lead, waited a long time for the encore, and then delivered under pressure, with the 142m and final total of 301.4 points proving enough to brush aside the challenge of a pair of 22-year-olds, Johann André Forfang (298.6 pts) of Norway and Andreas Wellinger (293 pts) of Germany. A grand total of seven athletes from these two nations found their way into the Top 10 on Sunday, whereas one man in particular came to rue his luck in Ruka, defending World Cup Champion Stefan Kraft.

For the second consecutive week, the Austrian dominated qualification and landed farther than anyone else during the three days of competition, even setting a new hill record of 147.5m on Saturday, however a mistake during take-off on his first jump in the individual event imploded his chances of victory. Kraft would correct in the final round, clearing 145m to escalate from 26th to 13th but, similarly to what had happened the day before, that wouldn’t amount to much as his outstanding performance wasn’t enough to corral Austria to the podium in a team event once again won by Norway.

The four Norwegian athletes took victory in the team event for the second consecutive week

Displaying great team spirit and homogeneity in performance for the second consecutive week, Robert Johansson, Anders Fannemel, Daniel-André Tande and Johann André Forfang collected 1184.2 points for Norway, a massive 68 more than second-place Germany, who knocked Japan to third in the last jump following a Richard Freitag 138m-leap that Junshiro Kobayashi couldn’t answer to. Fourth-place Austria was followed by Slovenia, and then ranked an unlucky Poland, whose sixth place came in spite of the disqualification of Piotr Zyla before his first jump due to irregular crotch length.

The next stage of the Ski Jumping World Cup is the Tramplin Stork, in Nizhny Targil, Russia, where athletes will compete in two individual events next weekend.

Alpine Skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin opens her win account in Kyllington

It’s not her native Vail or even nearby Aspen, Colorado, but Kyllington, Vermont, will do just fine for American star Mikaela Shiffrin on her quest for a second overall World Cup title. Usually fertile ground for the Slalom Queen, the early season swing through North America has brought 180 out of a possible 200 points to her mantle, and Shiffrin is already clear of the field in the general classification.

Overshadowed by dark clouds and light rain, the ultimate spoiler for the home favourite on Saturday’s giant slalom came in the form of German Viktoria Rebensburg, the 2010 Olympic Champion. Making it two of two in GS this season, the 28-year-old authored a pair of flawless runs on her way to secure a 15th career World Cup triumph, besting Shiffrin by 0.67 seconds and Manuela Mölgg by almost 1.5 ticks. Matching her surprise third place of the season opener in Solden, the Italian veteran is thus third on the discipline’s classification, tied with crystal globe holder Tessa Worley at 120 points, five behind Shiffrin and 80 from Rebensburg’s total.

American Mikaela Shiffrin drew all the attentions in the Alpine Skiing World Cup races in Kyllington, Vermont (Andrew Shinn)

Although she was pipped in GS, Shiffrin would reign supreme on Sunday’s slalom, riding with unparalleled bravado to avenge the result of two weeks ago in Levi. Slovak Petra Vlhová was no match for the American this time, but a competent second run vaulted her from fifth to second on the day, a hefty 1.64 seconds off the winner’s pace, while Austrian Bernadette Schild took advantage of Wendy Holdener’s error-filled second round to claim a fifth career World Cup podium. With 180 pts each and well ahead of everyone else, Vlhová and Shiffrin share top honours in the slalom classification so far.

North of the border, in Lake Louise, Alberta, the men contested the first speed competitions of the year with victory smiling on a pair of high-profile names. Reigning downhill World Champion Beat Feuz drew first blood on Saturday, edging the discipline’s Olympic Champion Matthias Mayer by 0.09 seconds in the fastest of the Alpine races. Returning to the tour after another severe knee injury, Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal was 0.32 seconds away from a dream comeback, eventually settling for bronze ahead of two-time crystal globe winner Peter Fill of Italy.

Fifth on the downhill, Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud rose to the top of the podium on Sunday’s Super-G to kick off the defence of the discipline’s title in style. The 32-year-old’s closest opposition was provided by a pair of Austrians, runner-up Max Franz (+ 0.28s) and 2015 Super-G World Champion Hannes Reichelt, who finished third (+0.32).

For now, Jansrud leads the overall World Cup classification followed by Feuz and Svindal, but the picture might change significantly next week when the men’s tour moves to Beaver Creek, Colorado, where three more events will be held: a downhill, a super-G and the first giant slalom of the season. At the same time, the speed demons of the ladies circuit have a first opportunity to showcase their form as the inaugural downhill and Super-G races of their season take place in Lake Louise.

Football: Madness in Dortmund

It can be claimed that more than the aggregate totals of wins, draws and losses, what levitates a rivalry are those magical games that stay in the minds of supporters positioned both sides of the fence. More times than not, it would correspond to those days when one team emphatically crushes the other, but while that wasn’t the case on Saturday, it can be argued one of the combatants abandoned the pitch in Dortmund broken to pieces.

Everything went smoothly for the struggling Dortmund in the early going. They scored one, then another, and another, and another. Not even the most irrational supporter could have foreboded a four-goal spree inside 25 minutes against their bitter rivals, but there it was, the perfect cleansing needed after some terrible weeks.

The game settled down and with thirty minutes to go, Schalke 04’s consolation goal bounced off the head of Guido Burgstaller. Four minutes later, another marker for the visitors. Is it possible? Aubameyang is stupidly sent-off. Maybe? Daniel Caligiuri smashed one inside the top-corner. Alright…it was four, it’s now one and soon… it’s none. Naldo meets the last-minute corner, sets alive the visiting horde and silences the Yellow Wall. 4-0. 0-4. 4-4. Crack open the history books.

The bottom line? With the draw both teams recovered a point to the leaders since Bayern Munich lost for the first time in Jupp Heynckes most recent tenure. Thorgan Hazard and Matthias Ginter scored for Borussia Moenchenglabach in their 2-1 victory, Arturo Vidal discounted, the hosts climbed to fourth, with 24 pts, and they’re two behind second-place RB Leipzig, who cut the deficit to Bayern after a 2-0 triumph over Werder Bremen.

Winless in six matches, Borussia Dortmund are fifth with 21 pts, while Bayer Leverkusen climbed to sixth, leapfrogging their opponents in round 13, Eintracht Frankfurt (0-1), but also Hoffenheim (3-0 L in Hamburg) and Hannover 96 (1-1 vs Stuttgart). Bottom-feeders FC Köln, who beat Arsenal on Thursday in the Europa League? An 11th loss in 13 games after succumbing to Hertha Berlin at home (0-2).

Premier League

Thirty-seven points amassed from the first 13 games mean Manchester City have started better than any other Premier League competitor in history, yet this weekend was just another reminder that, even for them, the danger lies in every corner of the toughest league in World football. Fortunately, soon after Nicolás Otamendi’s own-goal sent Pep Guardiola’s men to half-time down 1-0 at Huddersfield Town, Sergio Agüero levelled and Raheem Sterling found an 84th-minute winner that extends the winning-streak to 11.

A visit to Old Trafford beckons for City in two weeks, but before the short trek across Manchester, the Red Devils needed a deflected shot from Ashley Young to beat Brighton at their holy ground (1-0) and, consequently, preserve the difference at eight points.

Further behind, Arsenal escaped Burnley (0-1) with three points, courtesy of a last-minute Alexis Sanchez’s winner from the spot, and the Gunners were further rewarded with reclaimed land from the closest opposition. That would be city rivals Tottenham, who disappointed at home to West Bromwich (1-1), and the pair Liverpool / Chelsea, who drew (1-1) at Anfield Road on matchday’s 13 blockbuster after Willian’s lofted shot surprised Simon Mignolet and cancelled Mohamed Salah’s game-breaker.

Starting at Chelsea, third with 26 pts, and ending on eight-place Watford, who now possess 21, every team around the European zone has a one-point advantage over the next while, at the bottom, Cristal Palace’s second win of the campaign (2-1 vs Stoke City) pulled them within 3 pts off the safety zone.

La Liga

Unbeaten on the season and nine-games deep into a fantastic winning-streak, Valencia welcomed leaders Barcelona into the Mestalla with eyes set on moving closer to first place, but it took them quite some time to show it. The visitors dominated the first half and Lionel Messi’s shot clearly crossed the line to give them the lead, however the referee fell into a different reality and only then Los Che woke up to the top-of-the table clash. Their speed down the flanks created Barça some problems, and as Rodrigo poked in the opener at the hour mark, the rest of La Liga celebrated.

Not so fast said Jordi Alba, concluding a beautiful feed by Messi to forge a late equalizer that kept things equal at the very top, but not right below, since Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid cut their deficit by two points this week. The latter erupted offensively to pepper Levante with five goals, matching braces from French forwards Antoine Griezmann and Kevin Gameiro doing the heavy lifting, while the Champions of Europe suffered to overcome Malaga at the Bernabéu (3-2) until Cristiano Ronaldo notched the winner in the 76th minute correcting his saved penalty attempt.

Meanwhile, on the round’s best game, Sevilla completed the second stunning comeback of their week, a nice follow-up to that three-goal outburst against Liverpool mid-week. Down 2-0 at Villarreal, the visitors tied the match with consecutive goals, added the winner from the spot later on, and hang on to an impressive 3-2 away victory that distances their opponents.

Serie A

Another eventful weekend in Italy, with the top three completing their mission with success, the next three dropping points and AC Milan finally completing the shakeout everyone was waiting for.

Going through a strenuous period, leaders Napoli filled in the minimum requirements at Udine by snatching the three points after Jorginho impelled home the rebound off his missed penalty shot. The 0-1 road win wasn’t brilliant, but it was enough to keep the two-point advantage over Inter Milan, who travelled to Sardinia and saw Mauro Icardi bag two more in their 1-3 victory over Cagliari, the argentine’s 15th tally equalling Ciro Immobile’s total on the Capocannonieri’s race.

Meanwhile, third-place Juventus are still four points off the top, the challenge presented by Crotone dealt with after a three-goal barrage in the second half (3-0), but their advantage increased following the draws conceded by the two teams from Rome. Daniele De Rossi’s brain-stop resulted in a red card, a penalty converted by Genoa’s Gianluca Lapadula and two points left by I Giallorossi at the Luigi Ferraris (1-1), while Lazio’s substitute Felipe Caicedo kicked a Fiorentina player in the box deep into injury time to allow Khouma Babacar a late equalizer (1-1) in the Italian capital.

Moreover, one week after beating Juventus, sixth-place Sampdoria crashed and burned in Bologna (3-0), while AC Milan’s goalless draw to Torino at the San Siro signified the end of the road for coach Vincenzo Montella. Former midfielder Gennaro Gattuso takes over the coaching duties with the team in seventh place and already 18 points behind Napoli.

Ligue 1

Two seasons ago, Paris St. Germain won the French title with 96 pts and an absurd 31-pt advantage over the closest opposition, and after the Parisians thoroughly outclassed defending Champions Monaco at the Principality on Sunday, it’s fair to wonder if we’re bound for something similar.

With Julian Draxler joining Neymar, Cavani and Mbappé on attack, the visitors dominated at will for more than an hour, scored twice, left a few more for another occasion, and didn’t really sweat until João Moutinho’s free kick deflected on the wasteful Mbappé. The final 1-2 may be slim for the difference between the two sides, but the nine-point gap on the standings is, most certainly, not. Highly unlikely to retain the title, Monaco’s counterparts in Ligue1 will be Lyon, who caught up to them after another five-spot away from home, this time against the free-falling Nice, and Marseille, who solved Guingamp due to an individual effort by Florian Thauvin.

These three teams are separated by a single point after 14 rounds, and the fifth-place, still occupied by Nantes, is already at a five-point distance after the Canaries fell at Rennes (2-1).

That’s why this space rightfully belongs to Naldo, Schalke 04’s central defender who culminated his team’s monumental 4-goal comeback with a furious header in the last minute of the 151thRevierderby. The Gelsenkirchen outfit may have 58 victories in the history of the derby (to Dortmund’s 51), yet the goal that settled the 42nd draw will resonate through time more than many game-winners.

Seventeen years ago, when the United States claimed their 17th Fed Cup at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, you would have to be borderline crazy to wager that it would take almost two decades to bag No.18.

After all, four Grand Slam Champions (Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati and Lisa Raymond) had just thrashed Spain to capture a second consecutive title, and two young phenomena by the name of Serena and Venus Williams were already in the process of changing the WTA Tour and collecting Majors by the bucket load. However, having tasted victory in 1999, the Williams sisters have sparingly participated in the competition this century and by notably skipping the American’s last three Final appearances (2003, 2009, 2010), they left the job for the likes of Meghann Shaughnessy (2003), Alexa Glatch (2009) or Melanie Oudin (2009/2010).

From this perspective, it’s perhaps not as surprising that the most successful nation in the history of the tournament had to toil for so long to reclaim world domination, the wait for a new generation of female tennis stars finally paying off this season. Shrugging off a broken-down Germany squad (4-0) in Hawai last February, and a weakened Czech Republic (3-2) in Tampa two months later, the Americans were back in the decider and prohibitive favourites ahead of the slew of matches in Minsk’s Čyžoŭka-Arena.

Ultimately, no adverse conditions should make up for the massive disparity between the two sides, with the visitors fielding a top-10 player and a Grand Slam Champion while the modest Belarus countered with two players ranked outside the top 70 and trying to step up, once again, for two-time Australian Open Champion Viktoria Azarenka, a national hero stranded in California, USA, due to an ugly custody battle for her infant son.

Aliaksandra Sasnovich was instrumental to Belarus on their way to a first Fed Cup Final (The Associated Press)

Having operated their fair share of miracles without Azarenka, ousting rivals Russia in Moscow on the 2016 World Group playoffs and shocking the Netherlands (4-1) and Switzerland (3-2) in emotional home ties to reach the Final in their maiden World Group appearance, Belarus’ magic would certainly have to run away at some point, and when an authoritarian CoCo Vandeweghe defeated Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-4, 6-4 in the first rubber, many thought the USA would breeze to victory.

However, Belarus still had a few more rabbits to pluck of their hat and Aryna Sabalenka, their pugnacious 19-year-old, decided to throw caution to the wind against US Open Champion Sloane Stephens in the second match; dozens of winners (31) and plenty more unforced errors (57) later (6-3, 3-6, 6-4), she actually managed to level the score at the end of day 1.

Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka reacts after defeating Sloane Stephens in game 2 of the 2017 Fed Cup Final (Getty Images)

Unimpressed, Vandeweghe bounced Sabalenka (7-6, 6-1) to push the USA to the brink of the title Sunday morning, yet Stephens, winless since her triumph in Flushing Meadows, succumbed again, this time to Sasnovich after an exhilarating 4-6, 6-1, 8-6 classic, the home crowd urging the World No.78 as she erased a 2-5 deficit in the third set.

Belarus extraordinary campaign merited the fifth and decisive rubber, a doubles match that could give Sasnovich and Sabalenka immortality if they were able to complete the greatest team sports achievement in their country’s history; however it wasn’t meant to be.

The conspicuous Vandeweghe and partner Shelby Rogers took the first set by 6-3, and then endured the pressure long enough in the second, coming back from 2-5 to crucially break serve three consecutive times and force the tiebreak. The dreams of a nation, the fairy-tale ending, hanged by a threat and it would evaporate when a wayward forehand from a fatigued Sasnovich collided into the netting, a celebration 17 years in the making erupting in its place after an historic performance from a surging 25-year-old star.

Defeated in 2010, well before evolving into an elite singles and doubles players and two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist, CoCo Vandeweghe has come a long way since she was, simply, a promising teenager crestfallen by a loss to Italy in San Diego. Contributing with 8 total points and the maximum of 6 singles victories, an unprecedented feat since the World Group format was tweaked in 2005, Vandeweghe is now a Fed Cup legend, the perfect cherry on the top of her breakthrough WTA season.

With the Fed Cup handed out to the USA, the 2017 season for the women’s tour is officially over. Hence, attentions will now turn in full for the men, whose ATP Finals started Sunday in London right after the end of its new-fangled appetizer, the Next Generation ATP Finals.

Held in Milan for the first time, this season-ending event for the best singles players that are age 21 and under stood out particularly for the trial of a series of innovative rule changes tested for the first time in a competitive environment. The most interesting solutions included shorter sets (first to four games in each set with tie break at 3-All), no lets, no line judges – with all calls made by Hawk-eye – and possibility of on-court coaching and spectator movement during the match, nonetheless it’s still to be seen whether it can really increase the appeal of the game amongst sports fans.

As for the tennis, the tournament was won by Hyeon Chung, the first player from South Korea to lift an ATP Tour trophy since 2003. Victorious in all three group matches, the 21-year-old survived a tough, five set semi-final against Daniil Medvedev, and then defeated another Russian, World No. 35 Andrey Rublev, by 3-4(5) 4-3(2) 4-2 4-2 in the Final contested at the Fiera Milano.

Situated deep into the Arctic Circle (latitude 67.8°N), the weather in Levi is too chilling in winter for even the staunchest members of the white circus, making it impossible to hold a sporting event in Finland’s largest ski resort later in the season. Therefore, Lapland always kicks off the World Cup proceedings in respect to the most technical of the alpine disciplines, and the brightest slalom racers have gotten used to thriving from the get-go.

In 2016, ski stars Marcel Hirscher and Mikaela Shiffrin triumphed in Levi in the dawn of their winning campaigns, but they would strike out this time. We won’t know for a few months if this is a sign of things to come, but the road to retain their titles is certainly full of dangers and prospective rivals came out guns blazing for the first clash.

The World Cup venue in Levi in Finnish Lapland (Fis-Ski.com)

Shiffrin, the reigning slalom World, Olympic and World Cup Champion, once again showcased her unmatched mastery of the short skies in Levi, breezing to take the lead after the first run on Saturday, yet a sensational second leg by Slovak Petra Vlhová denied her intents of a third career victory in Finland. Racing off the blocks with a 0.21 second-disadvantage, the 22-year-old clocked 54.11s in the second turn for a combined 1:49.98 aggregated time, which Mikaela Shiffrin would miss by a tenth of a second. In Levi, the top duo was on a class of their own, with the third place finisher, Swiss Wendy Holdener, blowing past Frida Hansdotter to claim bronze some 1.25 seconds off the winners pace, nevertheless setting up a podium with the same three ladies of 2016 but in a different configuration.

The up-and-coming Vlhová, third twelve months ago, collected her third career win to push her rivals down a peg, and as consequence ascended to second in the overall classification, 10 pts behind Shiffrin, which is nice and all, but lags in comparison to the honour of naming a reindeer for the first time, the singular dividend granted to World Cup winners in Levi.

An amazed Vlhová wouldn’t disclose her choice in the immediate moments after the race, however the men’s victor had no such qualms. Veteran Felix Neureuther recently fathered a girl, and young Matilda will someday meet her namesake since the German skier was offered an unexpected gift in Levi.

Trailing British Dave Ryding after the first run by 0.14 seconds, Neureuther went fast in the second leg but not as much as the 30-year-old, whose advantage grew to more than half a second by the middle of the course. On a harmless left turn, though, Ryding would stumble a bit and miss the next gate, handing out to Neureuther a 13th career victory and the first since February 2016.

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen, the discipline’s 2015-16 crystal globe winner, took runner-up honours on the day while Swedish veteran Mattias Hargin posted the second best time of the second leg to grab an eight career podium and edge Swiss duo Luca Aerni and Daniel Yule, who tied for fourth, just 0.09 seconds away from a maiden podium for either man. As for the six-time overall World Cup Champion Marcel Hirscher, making a surprising appearance less than three months after breaking the left ankle in training, he was fourth at the mid-point of the event before surrendering to lack of form, concluding in 17th.

The FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup returns in two weeks in North American soil. On the 25th-26th, the men will be in Lake Louise (Canada) for the inaugural downhill and Super-G events of the year, while the women tackle two technical events (GS, slalom) south of the border in Killington, Vermont.

The final international break of 2017 is also the ultimate opportunity to clinch a place in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, making these days a whirlwind for the national teams still in contention. From the nine open spots, five have already been claimed and the rest will be awarded until Wednesday night, so let’s take a look at the latest from World Cup qualifying.

CAF

Nigeria and Egypt, already qualified since October, met their travel companions on the weekend as the African qualifiers reached their climax.

In Group A, Tunisia knew in advance that a point was enough regardless of RD Congo’s result against Guinea, and Les Aigles de Carthage fulfilled their duties, securing a nervous goalless draw at home against neighbours Libya to return to the world stage 12 years after the last appearance.

Fellow North African side Morocco is also heading to Russia after locking down Group C with a famous victory in Abidjan. Still to concede a goal entering the last game, the Lions of the Atlas stunned the Ivory Coast in the first half when Nabil Dirar and defender Medhi Benatia scored on a five-minute blitz, and then milked the clock to guarantee a result that served their intents. Morocco will make its first World Cup appearance since France 1998, while the Ivorians miss out after three consecutive tournaments.

Medhi Benatia (C) played the full game & scored a goal for Morocco as they beat Ivory Coast 2-0. Morocco will play in the World Cup for the first time since 1998. pic.twitter.com/9Z4JyUD2fr

Filling out CAF’s five team representation, Senegal will return to the World Cup after their only previous appearance ended in the quarter-finals in 2002. Back in South Africa to play a rematch of the encounter that had been annulled by allegations of match fixing, Senegal proved stronger than the Bafana Bafana this time and took the vital three points courtesy of an own goal and a marker from striker Diafra Sakho. With the victory, they amassed 11 pts, five more than Cape Verde and Burkina Faso with a round to go.

UEFA

Four playoff series were in order to complete UEFA’s 14-team contingent, and half are already consummated.

Northern Ireland – Switzerland, 0-1 on aggregate

On what was probably Northern Ireland’s most important match in 30 years, the hosts played second fiddle to a disciplined Switzerland team that dominated the ball in Belfast and deserved more than a victory tainted by a ludicrous refereeing mistake. Xherdan Shaqiri, Haris Seferovic and Granit Xhaka wasted good opportunities, but the visitors would eventually get their breakthrough in the 58th minute, the Romanian Ovidiu Hategan somehow detecting a deliberate handball from midfielder Corry Evans after a shot from Shaqiri, and left back Ricardo Rodriguez coolly converting the penalty on the game winner.

Absent from the World Cup since 1986, Northern Ireland lacked the artifice to threaten the Swiss goal and they went into the second leg, in Basel, with the daunting task of rescuing the tie away from home. A gutsy effort in the water-drenched pitch of the St. Jakob-Park kept Michael O’Neill’s men in the fray until the final moments, but when Rodriguez cleared a ball on the goal line in injury time, their dream was over. Switzerland will be in Russia for a fourth consecutive World Cup appearance.

Croatia – Greece, 4-1 on aggregate

Deprived of defensemen Vasilis Torosidis and Kostas Manolas, Greece wilted under the pressure of a talented Croatian team to all but seal their fate after the first leg in Zagreb (4-1).

The early mistake by goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis allowed Luka Modric to open the score from the penalty spot, shortly after Nikola Kalinic augmented the advantage for the hosts, and not even Sokratis Papastathopoulos header to pull one back inspired the 2004 European Champions to a rally. Their slim hopes were engulfed by the strikes of Ivan Perisic and Andrej Kramaric, putting the tie squarely in Croatia’s corner, and with a comfortable three-goal advantage, Zlatko Dalic’s squad entered the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis at ease. Croatia easily managed the game in Athens, held the 0-0 and booked a trip to Russia, barely bothered by an insipid Greece that couldn’t direct a shot on goal, at home, for 87 minutes.

Since their first World Cup qualification as an independent nation (France 1998), Croatia only missed out in 2010.

Sweden – Italy, 1-0 (2nd leg on Monday)

The only former World Champion yet to book a place in Russia, Italy will have to improve dramatically from their performance in Stockholm to avoid a first absence from the World Cup final tournament since 1958.

At the Friends Arena last Friday, the Azzurri were outplayed by a plucky Swedish side aspiring to end a 12-year World Cup drought, and Jakob Johansson’s drive, deflected on the way to goal by Daniele de Rossi, was simply the materialization of it. Without the suspended Marco Verrati, Italy will have to turn around the tie at the San Siro on Monday, or Gianluigi Buffon’s 175th international cap may well be his last.

Denmark – Republic of Ireland, 0-0 (2nd leg on Tuesday)

The visitors from the Republic of Ireland flew to Copenhagen determined to keep the deadlock for as long as possible, and they completed their mission with success, dragging Denmark to a dreadful game of football.

Neither team looked particularly capable of engineering a goal throughout the 90 minutes at the Parken, but they’ll need to do it in Dublin, on Tuesday, if they want to avoid taking their chances on a penalty shootout. Were they to succeed and go through, Denmark would return to the World Cup after last showing up in South Africa, while Ireland’s last appearance dates back to 2002.

Fans in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Wellington, New Zealand, left the stadiums frustrated by the lack of offensive entrepreneurship as their teams’ chances of going to Russia took a dip. Conversely, a home win is all that separates Australia and Peru from the objective, but you shouldn’t be surprised if things go down to the wire in the return legs to come.

Australia and Honduras drew 0-0 in the first leg of their 2018 World Cup playoff (Reuters)

On Wednesday, Sidney will stop to discover whether the Socceroos will qualify for a fourth consecutive World Cup or Honduras will make it three in a row and, a few hours later, the spotlight will shift to Lima, where the 32nd and last spot will be snatched, either by the hosts, who haven’t qualified since 1982, or the visiting Kiwis, last seen dawdling in South Africa seven years ago.

Moment of the weekend

Dave Ryding was a man on his way to history until disaster knocked him down with the same weight of a glacial blow from freezing Artic wind.

On his second slalom run in the slope of Levi (Finland), with the finish line in sight, a small skid off a turn was all it took to wreck Ryding’s perfect exhibition. The theatrical nature of slalom racing was in full display as he tumbled, and Great Britain’s wait for a maiden victory on the Alpine skiing World Cup continues.

Positioned on the calendar as the last regular ATP tournament of the year, the Paris Masters 1000 is premium territory for surprises and breakout runs, blending in-form journeyman making a late surge for crucial points ahead of the new season, everyday competitors fighting the effects of the long season, top-level guys chasing a position in the year-end Championships and stars managing their energies in preparation for the ATP Tour Finals.

Five years ago, this cocktail resulted in a Cinderella run by a qualifier, the unknown Jerzy Janowicz, and 2017, the year of “Stranger things” in tennis, was probably predestined for a rehash. Like the Pole Janowicz, Serbian Filip Krajinović had flown under the radar of most tennis fans until this week, however he did enough to warrant consideration, amassing five titles and 47 match victories on the ATP Challenger Tour throughout 2017, and then found a way to put it all together in the City of Light.

With one match victory recorded previously at the ATP Masters 1000 level, the 25-year-old waltzed past the qualifying in France and then brushed aside 10th seed Sam Querrey and 9th seed John Isner on his way to the Final, Rafa Nadal’s withdrawal before their quarter-final matchup simply a blip on the road.

Filip Krajinović reacts during his semi-final encounter against John Isner in Paris

By sake of our comparison, where Janowicz had a hammer of a service, Krajinović has a big two-handed backhand, and both have in common a massive jump towards a career-high ranking after their magical run – the Serbian from 77 to No. 33 in the World – and eventual defeat to a more experienced, yet first-time Masters 1000 winner. In 2012, Spanish veteran David Ferrer took the trophy, the most important of his career, this time American Jack Sock avenged his compatriots to claim the biggest honour of his (singles) career after three hard-fought sets (5–7, 6–4, 6–1) and 118 minutes.

While this edition will be remembered as the tournament of Krajinović, particularly if he fails to build on it like Janowicz, in the grand scheme of things Jack Sock’s triumph looms way larger, delivering a sensational final twist on the ATP Race to London. Entering the week, 10 men were vying for the last two spots available in the ATP Tour Finals’ lineup, and after Belgian David Goffin secured one despite losing in round three, the race went down to the wire.

For much of the tournament, Juan Martin Del Potro looked poised to confiscate the place of Pablo Carreño Busta (eliminated in round two), yet the Argentine succumbed to Isner in the quarter-finals, and the American’s subsequent loss to Krajinović swung the door wide open for Sock, the man fiddling with the lowest odds at the beginning of the tournament.

American Jack Sock returns a ball during the Final of the Rolex Paris Masters on Sunday (AFP Photo/CHRISTOPHE SIMON)

The World No. 22 needed everything to go his way, from Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s withdrawals, to the successive failures of his rivals and other major names in the draw – none of the top 8 seeds made it to a Masters’ last four for the first time in sixteen years – and he seized the opportunity when the improbable happened to conquer his third title of 2017. A 25-year-old from Nebraska, Sock is also the first American to lift a singles trophy at the Masters 1000 level since Andy Roddick in 2010 (Miami), and he will gallop into the top 10 for the first time, holding the ninth spot ahead of the ATP Finals.

With Paris in the books, the men’s tennis season will run for three more weeks, with the maiden Next Generation ATP Finals, featuring the best under-21 players in the ATP Tour, starting on November 7th and being followed by the ATP Finals and the Davis Cup Final.

Conversely, on the women’s ranks, only the 2017 Fed Cup is still to be awarded after the WTA Elite Trophy concluded Sunday in Zhuhai, China. The year-end tournament, contested by the top eleven players that didn’t qualify for the 2017 WTA Finals (plus wild card Shuai Peng) was captured by German Julia Görges, who swiftly moved from a six-year trophy drought to two consecutive tournament victories in the final weeks of 2017.

After defeating 1st seed Kristina Mladenovic and Slovakia’s Magdaléna Rybáriková in the round robin phase, the 29-year-old proceeded to vanquish Latvian Anastasija Sevastova (6-2, 6-3) in the semi-finals and American CoCo Vandeweghe (7-5, 6-1) in the Final to lift the most significant trophy of her career without dropping a set. Consequently, Görges ends the year on a nine-match winning streak and as the World No. 14, her best ever ranking.

Football: Man United capitulates to Chelsea to extend Man City’s gap at the top

Even if he claims otherwise, José Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge as an opponent will always be a special occasion for the man and Chelsea fans. Unfortunately for the Portuguese manager, it is also becoming significant for reasons that extend beyond the emotional realm, since for the fourth time in the same number of visits with Manchester United, he left empty-handed. An Alvaro Morata header was all it took for the Blues to overcome the Red Devils (1-0), and they moved to within one point of their adversary and rivals Tottenham in the standings.

With an injury-depleted lineup, the Spurs managed to battle past a feisty (and recovering) Crystal Palace side at Wembley – a long-range shot from Heung-min Son the difference on the day – and remain in the fray, yet another round came and went without a rebuff to the notion that this is Manchester City’s league to lose. On the other blockbuster matchup of round 11, the Citizens amassed a ninth consecutive victory by defeating Arsenal (3-1) at the Etihad to extend their lead to 8 points, with Arsène Wenger’s team threatening at times but never looking particularly close to snatching the draw.

With the loss, the Londoners dropped to sixth, their 19 pts levelled with the surprising Burnley, winners at Southampton (0-1), and Liverpool, who cruised past West Ham (1-4) to drop the hammer on Slaven Bilic’s coaching tenure. With two wins on the year, West Ham fell into the relegation zone, from which Everton exited after a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Watford (3-2).

Ligue 1

Goals, goals and more goals. A full boatload of them in round 12 for France’s top four, who combined for a 21-0 record this week.

Five tallies for leaders Paris St. Germain in Angers, Neymar’s absence a mere footnote when you have Kylian Mbappé (2) and Edison Cavani (2). Six for AS Monaco at the principality, with Argentine striker Guido Carrillo filling in for Radamel Falcao and young Adama Traoré netting a brace against Guingamp. Five for Olympique Marseille in the reception to Caen, two of them courtesy of French international Florian Thauvin. And, finally, five for Olympique Lyon on a one-sided Derby Rhône-Alpes, with Nabil Fékir stirring the pot in Saint Etiénne’s face after center-back Léo Lacroix was ejected early on the second half with the score sitting at a respectable 0-2.

As a result of the goal scoring festival, PSG keeps the four-point advantage over Monaco, the seven points above Lyon’s total, and the eight over Marseille, with Nantes hanging in fifth place after a 2-1 victory over Toulouse. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the table, the afflicted Lille returned to the winning column for the first time since round 1, the three points obtained in the venue of last-place Metz (0-3) not enough to leave the relegation zone, but providing some temporary relief nonetheless.

La Liga

Far from authoring their best performance of the year, frontrunners FC Barcelona collected a tenth victory in 11 games after dispatching Sevilla at the Camp Nou (2-1) on Saturday. Much-maligned forward Paco Alcácer notched both tallies on Leo Messi’s 600th game for the Blaugrana, and their four-point advantage stays intact for another week since second-place Valencia keeps hoarding the goals and the points.

This week, Los Che gifted their fans with three more of each against Leganés, and they’re still unbeaten on the season and navigating clear of both Madrid outfits, which healed their European scars with triumphs one week before meeting at the Wanda Metropolitano. While Champions Real Madrid bounced back from two consecutive defeats with a comfortable 3-0 win over Las Palmas, Atlético’s scoring woes continued in Galicia. a last-minute free kick from Ghanian midfielder Thomas Partey eventually secured the three-points against Deportivo La Coruña, but Diego Simeone’s men will need to step up their level to hold back a team like Villarreal, fifth with 20 points after a 2-0 victory over bottom-feeders Málaga.

A fascinating Serie A season got even more compelling following a testy round 12 for the pacemakers at the top. Defeated mid-week for the third time in four Champions League matches, leaders Napoli faltered on the return to domestic action as they couldn’t buy a goal in Verona against Chievo. The 0-0 marked the first time this season the Napolitans were blanked, and they only kept sole possession of the top perch because Inter Milan couldn’t do better at the San Siro, tied down (1-1) by a talented Torino side.

Napoli and Inter have 32 and 30 pts, respectively, and sandwiched in between is now Juventus, who had to suffer far more than expected to overcome last-place Benevento. Still pointless after 11 matches, the visitors jumped ahead on a free kick by captain Amato Ciciretti, but second-half tallies by Gonzalo Higuaín and Juan Cuadrado saved the defending Champions from an embarrassing result. Since Lazio’s reception to Udinese was postponed due to the inclement rain that fustigated Rome this weekend, Juventus were actually the main beneficiaries of the round’s results in conjunction with AS Roma, who came out on top of an intense, goal-filled encounter in Florence (2-4).

In serious need of a triumph to ease the pressure on coach Vincenzo Montella, AC Milan fared well at Sassuolo (0-2) to reach 19 pts, while Sampdoria prevailed (0-2) in the always volatile Derby della Lanterna, beating rivals Genoa, who are stuck at six points and under the red line.

Bundesliga

On the eve of the previous international break, at the end of September, Borussia Dortmund was running high in the Bundesliga, holding a five point lead at the top of the table. One month and four games later, Peter Bosz’s side has picked up just one more point and they’re six behind Bayern Munich after the surging Bavarians produced a ruthless display of strength in Der Klassiker (1-3). Arjen Robben, Robert Lewandowski and David Alaba scored Saturday at the Signal Iduna Arena, with Marc Bartra discounting for the hosts in the final moments, and the road for an unprecedented sixth consecutive title cleared out.

With Dortmund seemingly in shambles, at this time the closest opposition to Bayern are last-year’s runners up RB Leipzig, who came from behind to beat Hannover 96 by 2-1 with goals from forwards Yussuf Poulsen and Timo Werner. Moreover, levelling rivals Dortmund at 20 pts, Schalke 04 rose to fourth after claiming the three points in Freiburg (0-1), while Hoffenheim’s 3-0 victory at Köln vaulted them to fifth, and prolonged the hosts’ dreadful campaign. After the fifth place of 2016-17, FC Köln is yet to win this season and they’re stranded at two points after 11 rounds.

Another loss for FC Köln on the Bundesliga this season, the ninth in 11 matches (Foto: Bongarts)

Winter sports season gets under way in Sölden

Leafs are falling, temperatures are plunging, and the winter sports season is around the corner. As I alluded to in the first Weekend Roundup, in a year that will peak with the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games next February, these disciplines warrant increased screen time, consequently we’ll closely monitor them here over the next few months.

Since I can’t do them all, we’ll focus on three of the centrepieces of every Winter Olympiad: biathlon, ski jumping and alpine skiing. The World Cup circuit for the first two sports will begin later this month, but the alpine skiing 2017-18 World Cup season has already kicked off, and since we missed the boat last weekend, let’s take the opportunity to quickly recap the first race(s) of the year, the beginning of a trek spanning two continents, two dozens of venues and almost 80 different events (men + women) up to the season ending in Åre, Sweden, by mid-March of 2018.

As customary, the first stop of the Alpine Skiing World Cup was Sölden, in the Austrian Tyrol region, and on Saturday, October 28th, the ladies had the honour of raising the curtain on the 2017-18 season with the inaugural giant slalom race, won by German Viktoria Rebensburg.

German skier Viktoria Rebensburg celebrated victory in Sölden on the first race of the 2017-18 Alpine skiing World Cup (AFP Photo/Johann GRODER))

The 2010 GS Olympic Champion, who struggled in 2016/17 with back problems and a tibial fracture, overcame a 0.33 seconds deficit after the first run to snatch a second triumph in the season opener, seven years after collecting her maiden World Cup victory in the same venue. Expected to be on the hunt for a third GS crystal globe (2011, 2012), the 28-year-old’s campaign is off to a great start after she kept at bay the incumbent Tessa Worley, who placed in second to claim a first ever podium in Sölden.

The French skier, only sixth after the first run, was the fastest competitor in the second leg, and managed to leapfrog Italian veteran Manuela Mölgg, who had to settle for third place after a blistering inaugural descent in 55.57 seconds. As for last season’s overall World Cup Champion, American Mikaela Shiffrin, she clocked 55.69 in the first leg, right behind Molgg, but trailed a bit in the decisive segment to dip to fifth on a bright, autumnal day on the Rettenbach Glacier.

Lamentably, the conditions would change dramatically over the next few hours, with powerful wind gusts forcing the cancellation of the men’s event scheduled for the following day. A setback to the male competitors, especially the GS specialists whose cherished opportunity was wiped out from the calendar (opening events can’t be rescheduled), yet the tour will move on. As soon as next weekend (12th November), the Finnish ski resort of Levi hosts the first slalom races of the new term.

Moment of the weekend

With all due respect to Marco Asensio’s thunderbolt in Real Madrid’s triumph over Las Palmas, Nabil Fékir’s first goal on Sunday gets the nod for three reasons: the individual effort to back off the defence and the smooth finish, the impact of the strike on the eventual outcome, putting Lyon firmly in the driver’s seat on the derby at Saint Etiénne, and its role as the first domino for what would happen on the second half.

Marcel Hirscher’s path towards becoming the first men to win four consecutive overall World Cup titles got significantly easier after the injury to long-time rival Aksel Lund Svindal just a few days before the beginning of the season, but it ended not being the piece of cake many thought it would be. Svindal, the vice champion in 2013 and 2014, was shelved through the whole season, only making a short appearance to race at the World Championships, but he kept in touch with his Norwegian colleagues and his advice was certainly valuable to Kjetil Jansrud, who at the age of 29 had, by far, the best season of his career.

Even if Hirscher and Jansrud fought head-to-head during the season only on limited occasions, since the Austrian mainly races the technical events and the Norwegian has turned into a speed specialist, both men maintained a close look at the other’s achievements through the season and the duel intensified as it came to a close.

Kjetil Jansrud flies for his third consecutive WC victory in Beaver Creek

On the season start, at Solden, Hirscher kicked off in style by winning for the first time at the inaugural event, and he was already well positioned after only two races with the 2nd place obtained at the Levi slalom. However, when Kjetil Jansrud got his first action on the new season at Lake Louise, he started a run of three consecutive WC wins and on the blink of an eye took the overall standings lead.

Hirscher then added a podium on the GS of Beaver Creek and two wins at Åre just before the tour moved into Italy. To two great results by Jansrud at Val Gardena, Hirscher answered right back with the triumph in the GS of Alta Badia, capping a terrific start of the season for both men, who combined to take eight of the first eleven WC events.

However, on the last DH of 2014, at Santa Caterina, Jansrud was only 17th and this outcome would kick-start a less impressive run for the Stavanger-native, who would add only one more top-3 finish until February and the start of the World Championships. Meanwhile, Hirscher won the slalom of Zagreb and the GS of Adelboden, was second in the super combined and the slalom of Kitzbuhel, and added another podium to cling back to the top of the standings and build an advantage he wouldn’t relinquish.

Jansrud and Hirscher shared a race podium only once in 2015, at the Super Combined event of the World Championships.

A tense Jansrud arrived in Vail for the World Championships as the main contender for the SG and DH titles, looking for the first medal of his career on this big stage, but his declining form showed up again, with a fourth place in the Super-G being followed by a disappointing 15th position on the DH. However, on the combined, Jansrud put up a brilliant downhill run to get his hopes high, only to be surprised by the furious comeback of Hirscher on the slalom, with the Austrian shaving a disadvantage of more than 3 seconds to claim gold in spectacular manner. Hirscher would then add a silver medal on the GS after failing to beat a Ted Ligety boosted by the home crowd, and seemed to be on his way to retain his slalom title until he failed to make a turn on the second run and was forced to retire.

A speed-heavy scheduled followed the immediate return to the WC but the 29-year old Norwegian would still need to wait to get back to the top of the podium. Matthias Mayer and Hannes Reichelt dominated the DH and SG events of Saalbach and Garmisch-Partenkirchen and almost unconsciously helped their watching countryman, who took advantage of his scarce opportunities to keep piling up the points.

The first weekend of March took the racers to Kvitfjell, Norway, and Jansrud was bound to take close to the maximum number of points available if he still dreamt of clinching the big crystal globe. The 7th place on the DH was short and the victory the next day on the Super-G still kept him more than 50 points out of the overall lead with a par of technical events at Kranjska Gora still to come. Hirscher added a 2nd and a 6th on a conservative effort and knew he only had to manage the gap on the last races of the year.

Kjetil Jansrud lost the overall race but didn’t finish the season empty-handed.

At Méribel, Jansrud looked determined to fight until the end and he did his job both on the downhill, which he won, and the Super-G (2nd), thus clinching the discipline’s globes on the process. Nonetheless, the race for the overall title was nearly over after Hirscher surprised with a fourth position at the Super-G and Jansrud, in a final act of despair, raced on the GS, performing better than expected (11th) but not good enough to keep his dream realistically alive. With the overall and GS titles already on the pocket, a beaming Marcel Hirscher ended the season by putting the cherry on the top after taking victory on the slalom event and collecting another globe, the third consecutive on the slowest alpine discipline.

At the end of the 37 races that comprised the 2014-2015 men’s calendar, 160 points separated the pair, with Hirscher boasting eight victories (fourteen podiums) and Jansrud responding with seven (plus four more top-3 finishes), while both split the other globes available. For the Norwegian, lifting the bright, translucent trophies was a debut, whereas Hirscher now has nine on his personal collection (4 overall, 2 GS, 3 SL).

As much as both men shined over the year, other athletes also had excellent seasons, so now it’s the time to recognize some of them.

Alexis Pinturault took home the Kitzbuhel super combined triumph

Finishing third on the overall classification for the second consecutive year, France’s Alexis Pinturault managed to amass more than 1000 points and triumph twice, at the super combined of Kitzbuhel and the GS of Kranjska Gora. At the age of 23, Pinturault couldn’t beat Hirscher for the GS title, but he will take some solace on finishing the year in front of Ted Ligety, who has conquered the globe five-times since 2008. On the Word Championships, their fortunes reversed with the American winning the title, his third straight, and Pinturault repeating the third place achieved at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Nonetheless, the French is still young enough to evolve on other disciplines, namely the slalom and Super-G, which he finished in 10th, thus improving his chances of winning the overall title, while, at the age of 30, the Salt Lake City-native is running out of time if he still fancies raising the ultimate prize.

Germany’s FelixNeureuther equalled his best overall classification with the fourth place and, for the third year in a row, had to watch Marcel Hirscher came away with the elusive slalom trophy. The German had his best opportunity for glory to this date, leading the table throughout the year, but a mistake on the second run of the final event at Méribel cost him a few positions and he ended up 23 points short of his first crystal globe. In 2015, Neureuther won the races at Madonna di Campiglio and Wengen and added six more podiums, picking up a bronze medal on the World Championships after finishing behind France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange and compatriot Fritz Dopfer.

Dopfer was indeed one of the better surprises of the season, with the 27-year-old born in Austria placing in fifth at the final WC standings and adding a fourth position on the GS classification and a fifth on the slalom. Despite missing on his maiden World Cup win, Dopfer put up a really consistent season (16 top ten finishes in 18 races entered) under the inscription of the number 2, the position he occupied on four WC races and the aforementioned World Championships slalom.

Hannes Reichelt become a World Champion for the first time after winning the Super-G in Vail

From Germany back to their southwest neighbours, 34-year-old Hannes Reichelt was crowned the Super-G World Champion in February, but the campaign throughout the year at the discipline that earned him his only World Cup crystal globe (2008) was less effective, having to settle for fourth after besting his opponents only at Beaver Creek. However, he got to repeat the second position on the DH classification after pushing Kjetil Jansrud with a sequence of two wins and a podium after the World Championships.

Nine years younger, Matthias Mayer followed up a breakthrough 2014 season, when he became the DH Olympic Champion, with a 2015 of ups-and-downs. His best weekend of the year was at Saalbach, with a double success at the speed events, but those were his only wins of the year. Since he added just four more podium finishes, he also couldn’t make better than the lower podium position on the final Super-G classification.

Dominik Paris, from Italy, was one of the main contenders for every speed race during the season and his main accomplishment was the triumph at the Super-G of Kitzbuhel, the first on the discipline at WC events, and a win that validates his 2013 Downhill success on the same mythical slope of the Hahnenkamm Mountain. The 25-year-old ended up on the podium in five more occasions, and barely missed the chance of being a top-3 skier on both speed classifications due to an uninspired second part of the season.

Also delivering good results in 2015 were France’s Guillermo Fayed, who surprisingly clinched the third position on the final DH classification, Canadian Dustin Cook, the Super-G silver medallist at Vail and the first Canadian men to win an WC event on the discipline (Méribel), and Swiss Patrick Kung and Beat Feuz, respectively the gold and bronze medallists at the Downhill event of the World Championships.

Aleksandr Khoroshilov made history for Russia at the Schladming slalom

Concerning the technical races, Norwegian prodigy Henrik Kristoffersen, fulfilling his third WC season, added slalom wins in Levi and Kranjska Gora to his résumé and ended the season on a high note with his first GS triumph attained at Méribel. In comparison with 2014, the 20-year-old dropped one position both on the overall and slalom classifications, but the confirmation of his spectacular talent opens prospects of putting up a fight for the slalom crystal globe in 2016.

Taking Kristoffersen’s spot on the slalom classification was one of the surprises of the season, Russian specialist Aleksandr Khoroshilov, who at the age of 31 got his maiden WC triumph at Schladming, and become the first male Russian skier to win a WC race since 1981. Just a few days later, at the World Championships, Khoroshilov was in great position to challenge for the title after a brilliant first run, but the pressure seemed to weight on him and he had to settle for eight. Nonetheless, the Russian was certainly happy at the end of the season with a performance that included top ten finishes on every race he participated in and two additional podiums at Åre and Méribel.

Other names, like France’s Thomas Fanara, similarly deserve some appreciation, but this article is already too heavy, so I’ll stop here and hope they forgive me.

The overall Champions show off the trophies collected in 2015

The 2016 Alpine Ski World Cup starts on the end of October. As usual, Solden (Austria) will welcome the skiers back from a long summer of training on the mountain ranges of the Southern Hemisphere. See you then!